


To Make a Queen

by demogorgns



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arranged Marriage, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Attempted Sexual Assault, Canon Related, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, More tags to be added, Multi, Political Alliances, Pregnancy, Ramsay is His Own Warning, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sexual Assault
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2019-06-25 12:54:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 13
Words: 61,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15641178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demogorgns/pseuds/demogorgns
Summary: "In this world, a woman’s fortunes were tied to her husband’s, and all she could do to alter them was pray for a man like Robb Stark. But Elena had prayed for something different. She had prayed to be left alone. And only a few short days earlier, alone she had been left. Left to her own devices, to her books, to playing with the least irritating of her little cousins and half-siblings, to being a child. Now, they asked her to be a woman. And she didn’t know if she could be."What if Robb did marry his Frey girl?





	1. why weep ye by the tide, lady?

**Author's Note:**

> i shouldn't be starting a new wip but! i do what i want!  
> i'm trying to be book-accurate but it's hard so please correct me where i go wrong  
> also i know the whents are historically infertile due to the ~harrenhal curse~ or whatever but we're ignoring that today  
> 

The candles flickered with every draught that blew through the sept and trembled, as Elena trembled herself. Her gown was cloth-of-silver, rich, but old – no time for a new dress to be made up, not even for the bride of the heir to Winterfell. Besides, a new dress was too much expense for her father. Her maiden’s cloak was threadbare grey silk, with the Twins picked out in blue glass beads, held at her shoulders with a tarnished silver chain. It had been her mother’s bride cloak, and it did little to keep out the cold. Elena resisted the urge to clutch it to her body as another cold breeze blew through.

Her bridegroom stood tall and silent as a statue beside her. Elena dared not lift her eyes to look any closer at him. She had seen him only once before, yesterday, when her father had welcomed him and his army to the Twins. He hadn’t smiled when he kissed her hand, only looked at her with wide blue eyes, and Elena had thought to herself, _perhaps he is as scared as I am._ The thought was of little comfort. _More likely, he thinks me ugly._

“You may now cloak the bride, and bring her under your protection.” Olyvar removed her maiden’s cloak. Her father had refused to walk her down the aisle, claiming his old joints could not stand him being on his feet all that time in the cold. It made little difference. The cold bit her even harder through the thin, glittering threads of her gown. At least her bride’s cloak looked warmer – heavy white velvet lined with grey fur. Stark draped it carefully over her shoulders.

Breathing was difficult. Walda had laced her stays too damn _tight,_ possibly as revenge for marrying Robb Stark. As if Elena had wanted this. As if she wouldn’t rather stay at home with her books and her chores and the little ones, her small familiar life. Once again, she wondered why they’d chosen _her,_ of all her half-sisters and cousins who would have jumped at the chance to be the lady of Winterfell, even if he _was_ a rebel, who had all been ready to slit each other’s throats for Robb Stark’s hand in marriage. She wasn’t the cleverest or wittiest, and she _certainly_ wasn’t the prettiest – Roslin was far lovelier, and she dreamed of marriage to some high lord. She was even _nice,_ unlike Fair Walda, who pinched Elena black-and-blue at dinner when her marriage was announced. Why hadn’t they picked _Roslin,_ or even Walda – at least then Elena would have been spared the bruises.

The septon was saying something else. “...Binding them as one for eternity.” He picked up Elena’s pale hand and laid it limply on Stark’s. His hand was cold too. The embroidered silver ribbon wrapped round them both. “Look upon one another, and say the words.”

Elena raised her eyes to his blue ones. This time, he did try to smile, but it faltered and faded quickly. She studied him a little – his red-brown curls, his strong jawline. Yes, he was handsome. A nice change from looking at the men of her family. But a beautiful face does not necessarily hide a good soul. Elena didn’t know much, but she knew that.

“Father, Smith, Warrior, Maiden, Mother, Crone...Stranger. I am his, and he is mine. From this day...until the end of my days.” His voice was faltering and unsure. Elena tried to keep her own steady, her words in unison with his.

“Let it be known, that Elena of House Frey, and Robb of House Stark, are one heart, one flesh, one soul. Cursed be he who would seek to tear them asunder.”

_Oh, gods._ Elena felt the blood rush to her face as Stark leaned in to kiss her. Thankfully, he merely brushed her lips with his, his slight beard tickling her face. Then, mercifully, he was gone. _Not for long, though._ Elena gritted her teeth as she remembered. At least he had a war to fight, so maybe she wouldn’t have to endure his embraces very long. Perhaps she would still be left alone to read her books.

In truth, she was lucky. He was hardly the worst person her father could have given her to. Robb Stark was of an age with her, handsome and martial, possessed of an ancient and powerful family name, would one day be overlord of the whole North...such a match was worthy of the daughter of a great house, a Tully or a Baratheon or a Tyrell, not the mousy, shy daughter of an up-jumped Riverlands lord of little reputation. There was a reason her sisters and cousins were consumed with jealousy – a _good_ reason. In this world, a woman’s fortunes were tied to her husband’s, and all she could do to alter them was pray for a man like Robb Stark. But Elena had prayed for something different. She had prayed to be left alone. And only a few short days earlier, alone she had been left. Left to her own devices, to her books, to playing with the least irritating of her little cousins and half-siblings, to being a child. Now, they asked her to be a woman. And she didn’t know if she could be.

Catelyn watched Robb cloak the little Frey girl with a heavy heart. _He is hers now, my little boy no longer._ But then, he had not been her little boy since they had begun the march south. Perhaps longer than that.

At least the Frey girl seemed to have a good heart. More than could be said for many of her kin. Catelyn had first seen her when Lord Walder had invited Robb and his retinue into the Twins at last, after she haggled the price with him. He had paraded his daughters, granddaughters and nieces in front of them like broodmares, but Elena Frey had hid herself away at the back until her lord father shouted at her to straighten her spine and step forward. Catelyn had liked the look of her; from the way she glowered at Lord Walder, to the rosy, healthy glow in her cheeks.

A small girl, but not slender, with good child-bearing hips and breasts. She did haven’t Lord Walder’s look at all, thankfully for Robb – though she was no great beauty by any stretch, she was by no means ugly either, with a heart shaped face, wavy brown hair, full lips and large brown eyes. Her face was marred by old pox scars, faded but still apparent, though. No, not a great beauty, but there were things that counted more than looks.

Catelyn had walked up to her. A brief conversation could not anticipate a lifetime of marriage, but she had wanted to get the measure of this child-woman before she advised Robb to take her to wife.

She had curtseyed as Catelyn approached. “Lady Stark.”

“What is your name, child?”

The girl raised her large dark eyes. She looked nervous, but defiant. “Elena, as it please you. My mother was Lady Sarya of House Whent.”

“Well met, Lady Elena. My mother was also a daughter of House Whent, so we are kin.”

“I did not know that, my lady.”

Quiet, polite. She gave nothing away, this girl, but at least she did not throw herself at Robb like some of the other girls, and she seemed to have better wits than the rest. Catelyn trusted a reserved nature more than an ambitious one. But the real test was Grey Wind. When the direwolf entered the hall, all the women drew back, gasping and shrieking. Lady Elena trembled too, but she stood her ground as Grey Wind sniffed her skirt and drew away, back to Robb. Perhaps it was childish superstition only, but Cat felt reassured that the wolf liked the smell of the girl, and that she was at least brave enough not to flee from him. When Robb drew her aside to ask her opinion, she pointed out the Lady Elena to him from the crowd.

Robb pressed a kiss to the Frey girl’s lips, and the sept echoed with clapping. This wedding had been a trial for Robb, Catelyn knew, but he had endured it nobly. Now only the feast and the bedding to come, and they could at last head south. It was only three days delay, but three days was worth a week in war. They had needed to be on their way yesterday, really, but Lord Walder had peevishly insisted that Robb wed his daughter before he’d allow him to cross the Twins, or risk being reneged on. That was the curse of men without honour – they lived in constant fear that all men were as unscrupulous as they. Catelyn could have killed him. With every day that passed, Ned and the girls were in more danger.

The hall flickered with more candles, wax dripping onto the floors and hanging in stiff stalactites, layer upon layer like frozen waterfalls. Elena’s father held court on the dais, with Elena one to his right, and Lady Stark to his left. Her new husband sat at her father’s right hand, eyes on his wine cup. She prayed he would not attempt conversation.

Elena picked at the fish course – salmon, usually her favourite. Tonight, for obvious reasons, she had little appetite. Her fork found uncooked flesh deep in her portion, and her stomach turned. If there was one thing she would not miss about the Twins, it would be the cooking. A glance to the side told her that her husband felt the same. He shoved his fork aside and took a deep draught from his goblet, and then turned to Elena. She quickly looked back down at her plate.

“My lady. Are – are you well?” His voice still trembled a little, probably with the drink. Gods, how Elena hated men when they were drunk, breath stinking, yelling, putting hands where they weren’t wanted. She supposed he would be yet more intoxicated by the time they went to bed. Still, she would do her duty. She would be brave.

“Perfectly, thank you, my lord.” She could barely hear herself over the clamour in the hall.

“Good – good. I hope – I know a forced march is a hard place for a lady, but my lady mother will be a companion to you. Soon, this will all be over. I hope you will like Winterfell, my lady.”

It took Elena a second or two to place what he was talking about, mind preoccupied and only really half-listening. Did he mean -

“You mean – am I to go south with you, my lord?”

“Did no-one tell you?” Her new husband looked sheepish. “Lord Walder thought – it was thought better than you staying here – my mother suggested – she would take care of you, and we...we could get to know each other. I suppose.”

“Won’t you have more – pressing concerns than I?”

“Yes – I mean -” He flushed. “Well, not more _pressing_ than – I may not be as attentive as I might have been, but neither will I abandon you, my lady.” His words were kind, and well-meant. Yes, he _was_ as nervous as she.

“Well, I hope I will not prove a distraction,” she said softly.

“No, my lady. You will be a welcome diversion, I don’t doubt.” Elena studied him. Robb Stark. He was just a boy, really, a month or two her junior. If she was still a child, what did that make him? And yet he was marching to war, for his father’s sake, a father captured and at the mercy of the Lannisters. She must seem a trifling thing to him, more a nuisance than anything else; and yet he agreed to take her with him, no doubt at the demand of her father, desperate to be rid of another daughter. Robb Stark had no need of her, no need to be polite to her, no need even to talk to or look at her. Yet he did. Despite it all, he was making the effort to be kind, and that was what counted.

“I hope I will be a comfort to you, my lord,” Elena said, and meant it. His smile was surer this time. She returned it.

They picked their way through several more courses. There was an air of hastiness about everything; no-one in the Stark retinue wanted to linger while their lord languished in a cell in King’s Landing, and Elena’s lord father no doubt wanted her and Robb bedded as soon as possible, so the match was solidified and they could leave his hall and cease eating his food.The courses seemed to fly past, none of them particularly appetizing. Elena ate little, and so, she noticed, did her husband. Whenever they caught one another looking, they smiled awkwardly and glanced away. At one point, Robb had pointed out one of her older half-brothers dripping soup into his lap as he stared at one of the serving girls, and they both laughed a little before lapsing back into silence.

It wasn’t so bad. Of course, it couldn’t last forever. The night’s inevitable conclusion had to come, and come it did.

Her father was saying something. Elena wasn’t listening. She had become transfixed by watching Fair Walda’s breasts threatening to spill out of her too-tight bodice as she leaned over a sleeping Ser Whalen to flirt with a lean, dark-haired youth who’d come with the Northmen. Surely her stays would burst with the pressure, surely…

“To bed with them!” The cry had come from the object of Walda’s affections, the dark-haired Northman with the grey eyes. Elena had not noticed the men start to sit up and pay attention at her father’s words, or Robb’s mortified but not displeased expression. Her stomach flipped.

“Bloody Theon...” Robb muttered, face flushed, but grinning a little. Elena felt herself began to blush too. Others were taking up the cry, laughing, banging fists on the table. Robb stood, laughing and yelling back replies to their bawdy jokes. Elena could barely hear it all over the rushing of blood in her ears.

_Don’t cry, do_ not _cry, don’t cry, don’t…_ Under the table, she dug her fingernails into her palms to stop the embarrassing prick of tears in her aching eyes. If she let them see her tears, she would never live it down, her family would never let her forget it as long as she lived. _And it’s nothing to cry about anyway, it’s a natural thing, so don’t you_ dare _be a baby about it!_ She could see Fair Walda’s hateful grin over the crowd of wedding guests.

Catelyn sighed. It was a humiliating thing, to be sure, although many women tried to enjoy it, to throw back the jokes in kind. Elena Frey was not that kind of woman, to be sure. She looked pale, with high spots of feverish red in her cheeks, and her eyes shone with unshed tears in the candlelight as the women led Robb down from the dais, plucking at his clothes.

Catelyn tried to make eye-contact with the poor girl, to give her some reassurance. Finally, Elena glanced over. Catelyn smiled, looking into the wet dark eyes of the girl on the other side of the great chair, and nodded a little. _It doesn’t last forever. Just grit your teeth and bear it, child._

Elena saw Lady Catelyn’s smile through a haze of unshed tears. She had been through this too, and she seemed so strong and sure of herself, despite the danger her family was in. _Show them how brave you can be._

So she plastered a fake smile on her face and willed away the tears, standing and allowing herself to be borne away by the Stark men and the men of her own family. Replying to their lewd comments and jests was more than she could manage, for if she tried to speak she feared her voice would crack and she would start to cry. Still, she helped them unlace her gown. It seemed better to have some control than just be stiff and passive.

She found herself in the arms of the man who’d led the cry to bed them as they carried her up the stairs.

“My lady.” He gave a smirk that didn’t quite meet his cool grey eyes, and flicked a lock of dark hair out of his eyes with a jerk of his head as he mounted the stairs. “I haven’t had the honour of introducing myself. Theon Greyjoy.” Elena could think of nothing to say to that, and still not trusting herself to speak without bursting into tears, she simply glowered. In reply, Greyjoy tightened his grip on her waist, and she blushed. “You’ll pardon the imposition, but it doesn’t seem fair that Robb gets a taste of you and I don’t. We’ve shared everything, you see, since we were boys.” If Elena had been a little stronger, a little more spirited, she would have slapped him for that, but instead she cringed silently, face burning. She wore only her shift now, and she could feel the heat of his body through the thin fabric. It mattered not, however, since he said it too loud in his drunken state, and Robb, now shirtless and barefoot at the top of the stairs, turned with a furious look in his eyes.

“You go too far, Greyjoy. That’s my lady wife you’re holding.”

Greyjoy set her down outside the bedroom door on her feet, more gently than she’d expected. “No offense meant, Stark. She’s all yours.”

“You should learn to watch your tongue,” Robb glowered. The other wedding guests had lapsed into awkward silence, laughter dead.

“I’ll guard it better in future,” Greyjoy said carefully. “Come now, we’ve a task to complete.”

Elena shivered in her shift as the two young men stared each other down. Robb’s face twitched into a smile, but it didn’t quite meet his eyes. “Alright.”

Suddenly the hands were on her again, pulling her shift over her head. Elena wanted to die; bad enough that her husband had to see her naked body, bad enough _she_ had to see it in the mirror every day, bad enough her sisters had to see and tease her for the stretch marks on her thighs and the faded old scars of the pox on her back. Now these strangers were drinking her in as well, and the titters of derision from the women were almost as bad as the leers from the men. Someone else picked her up, thankfully not Greyjoy this time, but through the fresh blur of tears she couldn’t see their face. They carried her into the bedroom and laid her on the bed. Immediately, she drew the covers around her.

She glanced around the room. The walls had been hung with white and grey banners, fresh candles burning, and the sheets were silk. There were fresh cut flowers on the windowsill. She wondered if Alyx had put them there, as she promised she would. She tried not to look as Robb came in, childishly afraid. For a moment, some of the Stark men lingered about the doorway, until Robb shouted jovially at them and closed the door in their faces. Then they were alone.

Elena shivered. She kept her eyes on the candle in the corner. It fluttered so bravely, so yellow, imprinting on her wide open eyes until it blurred and swam. Her throat ached with unshed tears. She jumped a little when she felt Robb’s weight settle on the bed.

“...My lady...” He laid a hand on her shoulder. It took all she had not to cringe away.

_Don’t be such a baby. It will all be over soon._

“I promise not to hurt you,” Robb murmured, so softly she could hardly hear him. Elena nodded, swallowing her tears.

“I know.” She lay back and spread her legs. When she felt his hands on her, she closed her eyes. Behind her darkened lids, the candle still swam before her eyes, a yellow streak in the darkness.


	2. gentle mother, font of mercy

When it was over, Elena lay stiff and silent and fought the tears as hard as she could.

Robb seemed to sense that she didn’t wish to talk. Awkward silence reigned, until he rolled over and put his back to her, unreadable. Soon, his breathing became deep and slow with slumber, and Elena let the tears trickle down her cheeks and into her hair, spread over the pillow.

She wasn’t quite sure why she was crying. It hadn’t hurt much; a pinch, perhaps, the snap of delicate skin breaking, but true to his word, Robb had been gentle. It hadn’t taken very long. Maybe it was just the shock. She was a woman now; like the older women had told her. She still felt like a chubby, clumsy little girl, though. All alone, and not ready to be a wife to some stranger from the cold North, the mother of his children, the lady of his keep.

After some time, she sat up.

The room was still lit with the now guttering, sputtering candles, burning down to puddles of wax. Elena wrapped a blanket around her aching body and stood up. She was sore between her thighs, and it hurt a little to walk, but she went to the windowsill anyway.

Below, in the Great Hall, the feast was over already. Ordinarily the men would drink until sun-up, but tomorrow the Stark forces would march through the Twins and onto the other side of the river, and head south to free their lord and get bloody justice. The sound of horses being saddled, armour and arms being stowed, and carts being loaded with provisions drifted over the night air and into the window of Elena’s wedding chamber. A thousand fires burned in the darkness.

Elena wondered how her own things were packed, whether her part of the trunk she shared with two of her cousins was empty already. A knife entered her heart when she thought of Roslin, Alyx, little Cersei that she nicknamed ‘little Bee’, Zia. The twins, Androw and Aryn, only three, who giggled and waved chubby little arms for her to pick them up. Tomas, a knight now, but still gawky and nervous even though he used a sword better than any of their kin. Olyvar was Robb’s new squire and would be coming with them, but the rest she must leave behind. The most tolerable of her cousins and half-siblings, her playmates since she could remember. She had to say goodbye to at least some. She knew not if she would ever see them again.

She pulled her shift over her head and wrapped the blanket around her shoulders, and took the least melted candle, blowing out the rest. The smoke drifted in the dark room.

The Twins were quieter than she had ever known them. Even with the added guests, there were no raised voices, no footsteps. The Northmen were trying to get as much sleep as possible before the march, Elena supposed. She crept through the corridors and up the stairs, knowing the way blind, hardly needing the flickering candle. When she pushed on the door of her chamber, she heard giggles and whispers.

Roslin and Alyx were sat up on the bed they all three shared together, raven hair and brown pressed together. On the other bed, the twins Serra and Sarra were laughing at something Fat Walda had evidently just said. Elena’s half-sister Arwyn was sat on the floor, next to Fair Walda, who smirked cruelly when Elena poked her head round the door.

“So? Did Stark sheath his sword, or did he throw up at the sight of you?”

“Oh, you’re a jealous little cow, Walda,” Fat Walda sighed, throwing a pillow at her cousin’s head. “What was it like, Elly? Nice, I bet? He’s so handsome.”

“It was….I don’t know. Quick.” A chorus of giggles went up at that. Roslin shifted aside to make room for Elena between her and Alyx.

“You’re so _lucky,_ Elly,” she breathed, not the first time she had expressed that sentiment. “He’s _beautiful._ And you’ll be Lady of Winterfell someday, how fine.”

“Yes,” Elena said simply.

“When will you be?” Serra asked. Elena frowned, but Fair Walda got there first.

“Not too long, I bet. The Lannisters will soon have the old lord’s head off, that’s what my father says.”

“Not if Robb gets there first,” Elena replied heatedly, suddenly angry. “I won’t be Lady of Winterfell for many years yet, gods willing.”

Fair Walda yawned theatrically. “Gods, you’re dull, Elly.”

“Gods, you’re a bitch, Walda,” Fat Walda said in the same tone. Serra and Sarra shrieked with laughter, Arwyn and Alyx laughed, and even sweet Roslin giggled behind her hand.

“They packed your things,” Alyx confided, leaning over Roslin a little to speak to Elena. “The sturdy stuff, wool and cotton. The silks and velvets they’re sending on to Winterfell, I think.” Gods knew she had little enough silk and velvet, and plenty of wool and cotton. It made sense. She would need hardy, practical dresses in shades that wouldn’t show the mud on the march, and would have no call for what few fine gowns she had.

“Won’t the silks be too thin for the North?” she thought aloud.

“I’m sure once you get there, they’ll make you up warmer things. Prettier things, too, I bet.” Alyx replied. Elena had only ever had hand-me-downs from her older female relatives, one or two nice dresses at the most, and those had to be made over and taken out as she grew. Her father was not poor, but he didn’t waste his money on his myriad daughters, claiming better things to spend his gold on than the fancies of a few stupid girls. It might be nice to have new dresses for a change.

“I’d swap all the fine gowns in the Seven Kingdoms to stay here with you,” Elena said quietly. Immediately, protest erupted from the other girls. Fair Walda scoffed and rolled her eyes.

“You’re such a stupid baby. You don’t understand how lucky you are, do you?”

“Why in the name of all the gods would you want to stay here? Do you want to spend the rest of your life in this draughty rabbit-warren, locked up with the rest of these ugly bitches?” Fat Walda cried in disbelief. The twins cackled and nodded.

“She’s right. You’re on your way to a much better life,” Alyx nodded sagely. She was seventeen, tall and skinny, and sensible.

“You’ve made such a match, Elly! We should all hope to be half as lucky as you. Be happy!” Roslin smiled.

Elena conceded privately that they all had a point. Materially, she had a much better future ahead of her than she could have reasonably hoped for. A few days ago, she was anonymous, invisible to her father, bullied by her family, stifled with boredom that could only be alleviated by the stories in her books and her own flights of fancy, a poor and mean little creature. Today, she was the wife of the heir to Winterfell. Still, there would be pain and blood ahead to go with the fine dresses and titles, and the child inside her cringed at the thought.

“I’m tired,” she said shortly. “I should go back to bed.”

“Back for another romp, you mean. Well, don’t let us stop you,” Fair Walda smirked. Elena glowered and said nothing.

“No, Elly, stay,” Roslin begged. “It’s your last night. Go back to bed in a few hours, maybe.”

Elena pulled her leg back onto the bed. It would be nice to spend her last night with them.

They talked for a few more hours. Elena endured Fair Walda’s barbs – it was easier with Fat Walda there to tell her off. She almost had fun. Somehow, though, she felt the distance between her and the other girls. Though they were all roughly the same age, Alyx being the eldest and the twins the youngest at fourteen, Elena felt somehow older than all of them. They all believed that because Robb was handsome and powerful, that that was the same as being in love. Elena knew better. A marriage bed wasn’t a bed of roses and romance. It wasn’t really a bed of blood, either, like the old crones had warned her – true, there had been spots of blood on the sheets when she got up, but nothing more dramatic than that. It was just – a part of life. It hurt some, but mostly it was just to be endured, like anything else.

The morning light was weakly breaking as Elena walked back to bed. Robb still slept. She slipped into bed beside him, and lay there as the light grew stronger, until he stirred and greeted her with a sheepish, sleepy smile.

Breakfast was hasty. The Starks wanted to be gone. Lady Catelyn in particular seemed impatient as they stood on the bridge for Lord Walder to say his goodbyes. Elena cringed away from his embrace, the cold wind drawing up goosebumps under the sleeves of her gown. She had always been his most disappointing child, she knew. Her mother had given him nothing but miscarriages for several years into their marriage, and then promptly died when delivered of the tiny, sadly female Elena. Elena never quite understood why he cared – he had more than enough sons already. Still, he had never paid her the slightest bit of attention until Robb chose her to be his bride. She’d got his great Stark wedding for him, so he could boast he was the grandfather of the Lord of Winterfell someday, and now he was done with her.

“I know you’ll give my lord Stark many fine sons,” he warbled on, still clutching her arm. Elena wrenched her arm away.

“I will make you proud, lord father,” she said coolly. _I will do my duty. I know you think I’m a stupid ugly little_ _girl who can do_ _nothing_ _right_ _, but I can do my duty. I_ will _do my duty._ She turned on her heel and marched away. Olyvar helped her mount up.

“I’m excited!” he whispered to her as he held her mare steady while she gathered her reins. “I’m to be your lord husband’s squire, and help him with his armour and go into battle and _everything!”_

“They told me! Congratulations!” she leaned down and whispered back with a smile. Her heart was heavy with misgiving. _You’re too young to be going into any battles._

Elena rode out of the Twins at the head of an army. Robb was ahead of her, of course, but she was just behind, alongside Lady Catelyn. The clatter they made as they cantered over the long stone bridge was deafening.

Elena watched the back of her lord husband’s curly red head as he rode ahead of her. _So, this is what you wed me for, my lord. A bridge. Was it worth it?_ She genuinely wondered. Was this crossing worth her, in his bed, for the rest of his life? Elena herself wouldn’t have paid that much, not even for her own father. _Especially_ not for _him_. She supposed Robb had the Frey army at his back now, as well. Perhaps she was a small price to pay for all that. She was just a girl, and she didn’t really understand the warfare or the politics of men.

She felt eyes on her and turned a little in the saddle to glance over her shoulder. Theon Greyjoy rode a fine blood-bay mare, just a little behind her. When he saw her looking, he grinned and licked his lips. A shiver went through Elena, and she turned away.

She hated being in the saddle. She could ride well enough, but she didn’t like having something between her legs with a mind of its own and the ability to kill her if it got frightened or simply sick of carrying her. Robb and his army kept a fast pace, too, which was even worse. The motions of her mare made the soreness between her legs even worse, and her legs, thighs and backside were soon numb. Her fingers cramped from keeping a grip on the reins. Doubtless she’d have saddle-sores. The weather had been mild, but summer was waning and the wind was beginning to bite, blowing Elena’s hair in her face and worming in through the gaps in her clothes to chill her. She tossed her head with a noise of frustration, trying to get her hair out of her eyes without losing control of her mare.

“Are you alright, my lady?”

Elena half-turned in the saddle. Lady Catelyn was slowing her mare to match Elena’s unsteady pace with a look of concern on her face.

“I – yes, thank you.”

“I know this must be difficult. To leave your home, and come on a forced march with an army – it is no place for women such as we, but your lord father did not want you and Robb to be parted so soon.”

_My lord father wanted rid of a useless mouth._

“As you say, my lady. I’m happy to come, if I can be of some comfort to your son.”

“I am glad to hear it. War is a terrible thing, and he is so young...” Lady Catelyn trailed off, suddenly looking more vulnerable than Elena had expected. She was a beautiful woman, with the same tumble of red hair and bright blue eyes as her son. Elena felt quite the boring, mousy little thing beside her.

“I hope that I can ease his burden.”

“Thank you, child.” The Lady of Winterfell sounded tired.

They made camp as dusk was falling, many miles already from the Twins. Elena fancied she felt a little lighter without the eyes of her family upon her. When she dismounted, she was as stiff as a board, but Lady Catelyn took her arm to steady her.

“There, it’s over now, for today. Let’s have a bath drawn up for you.” Elena gave her a grateful smile and let her lead her to the tent.

There were no maids here, but some of the serving men heated water over the fire and poured it, steaming, into a copper travelling tub. Lady Catelyn helped Elena undress, as her sisters would have at home. Another pang of melancholy came at that thought. The heat of the water warmed her through, though, and dissolved the ache in her bones. She hissed as the water made contact with the sore, delicate skin between her legs, but then relaxed a little. She kept her arms wrapped tight around herself, though, unable to allow herself to be fully vulnerable.

“Do you want me to stay and help?” Lady Catelyn asked. Elena looked into her kind, sad blue eyes, and nodded.

Lady Catelyn helped her wash the dust of the road out of her hair and from her skin, and Elena closed her eyes a little as the comb ran through her hair, teasing out the tangles the wind had put there. She loved the tugging feeling of her hair being gently pulled away from her scalp, had since she was a little girl. Lady Catelyn smiled.

“You have lovely hair, child. Like my daughter’s. Sansa always loves it when I brush her hair.”

“I hope I will meet Lady Sansa soon, my lady. And Lady Arya.”

“Oh, Arya. Arya hates getting her hair brushed, or bathing in general. When she was very small, she fought like a wildcat not to get in the water.”

Elena giggled a little. “Like my sister Shirei. When she was a baby, she used to bite if you tried to brush her hair. She’s grown out of it now.”

“I hope you will not miss your family too terribly.”

“Oh, I doubt it,” Elena said carelessly, then flushed when she realised how that sounded. “I mean, I’m sure my new sisters and brothers-in-law will make me feel at home.”

“And soon, you may have children of your own to occupy you,” Lady Catelyn said gently. Elena blushed.

“Yes...I hope so.” _At least, I think I do._

They lapsed into silence for a little while. Elena got out, dripping, and Lady Catelyn helped wrap her in a gown and dry her hair a little. Elena screwed up her courage, and asked.

“My lady, is...is it so very hard?”

Lady Catelyn turned to her from where she had been putting away the comb. “Is what hard, my dear?”

Elena felt her face begin to burn. “Having children.”

Lady Catelyn gave her a sad, slightly pitying smile. “Yes, child. It is so very hard. Men wage war, and women give birth. They’re equally bloody pursuits, and equally painful, but I think we have the better part. My children are my greatest joy. No matter what pain I’ve endured, it has been worth it to see them grow.”

Elena was quiet as she processed this. She knew plenty about how children were made, and what it took to bring them into the world; how could she not, growing up in the Twins, where children were in a never-ending supply. Still, she’d never seen or heard of a mother’s love like that which Lady Catelyn Stark had for her children.

They threw out the water and drew a new bath for Lady Catelyn, and ate a simple meal together as the darkness fell outside the tent. Everything was more comfortable than Elena had expected from a military encampment, though she supposed the tent of the lord and commander was a far cry from that of the common men-at-arms. Their discomfort must have been great. When she wondered aloud if Robb would come back soon, Lady Catelyn smiled and chuckled, shaking her head.

“We’ll both have long been sleeping by the time his war council is done, I don’t doubt.”

“How can he plan a war if he’s up at all hours?” Elena asked, honestly confused.

Lady Catelyn laughed again, though it seemed sad this time. “I do not know, child. Truly I do not.”

Lady Catelyn had left for her own tent, and Elena was half-asleep, when Robb finally entered the tent. She felt herself stiffen up at the sound of his footsteps. She heard the creak of leathers and armour as he sat down, and a groan of exhaustion, and sat up on the cot bed. Robb was sat in the camp chair, head in his hands. She could only just see him, illuminated by the dying embers of the brazier.

“My lord?”

He raised his head.

“My lady...I’m sorry, I did not mean to wake you -”

“I wasn’t asleep,” she lied quickly. “I couldn’t.”

“Then we are well matched,” he smiled weakly. He looked older than sixteen. He looked a thousand years older.

“Is there anything I can do, my lord?” Elena asked softly.

“You could call me Robb.”

“...Robb.”

Elena slipped off the bed, drawing the furs around her shoulders. The ground was cold on her bare feet. She walked over and placed a hand on the straps of his breastplate, and when he didn’t say anything, she worked the buckles undone with care and placed it carefully on the table. She did the same with the gauntlets and greaves, and pulled the stiff leathers over his head, until he was just in his shirt and breeches. Her fingers danced for a second on the linen, and then she pulled away, intending to go back to bed and leave him to the rest of it, but he caught her by the wrist. Elena held her breath, as Robb lifted her hand to his cheek and rested it there, bending his head into her palm. She brushed a thumb across the skin and found it damp with tears. His other hand rested on her hip, and then he curved his arm around her and pulled her into his lap.

Gone was the brief, embarrassed brush of his lips. Robb crushed his lips to hers, hot and wet and open-mouthed. Elena could feel her heartbeat pounding everywhere, in her lips, her chest, between her legs. _Maybe it won’t hurt so bad this time,_ she thought desperately as he pulled her shift from her shoulders. _The older women said it got easier. For the gods’ sakes, let it be easier._ His lips pressed everywhere, her collarbones, the soft part of her neck below her ear, her breasts. He pushed her to her feet, standing as well, and the shift fell to the floor between them.

Robb gave her little chance to be embarrassed, pulling her close to his chest and kissing her again violently. When he lifted her by the waist, she wrapped her legs and arms around him helplessly, with words of how this was not what she had intended to start dying on her lips. He laid her down on the bed and she shivered a little in silence as he pulled off his remaining clothes, and then knelt before her, hands on her thighs. She bit the pillow, hard, to smother her cry when he thrust inside her.

A little while later, Elena pulled the furs back around her bare shoulders. She could feel his seed drying stickily on the inside of her right thigh. Robb himself was asleep once more, facing her this time. She rolled over a little to face him.

In sleep, he was a boy of sixteen again, all the hard lines of his face softened. His red curls were a tousled mess. Elena watched him sleep until dawn, but the longer she looked, the less she could see.


	3. o, god! guide us, protect us; we are too young to reign!

The days and nights bled into each other on a march. The landscape around them changed little as they headed south, the same trees and low rolling hills and little streams. Elena got very little sleep; due either to Robb’s continued presence in her bed, or simple insomnia. Every day in the saddle, she felt her eyelids droop unbidden, and it took all her strength to keep herself alert and her mare on the path. Every night, she lay quiet and let Robb have what he wanted, what he seemed to need. After a few nights, she felt brave enough to hold him back, to cup her arms around his shoulders or wind her fingers through his curls. He still didn’t _talk_ much, though.

Elena didn’t know much about Robb’s plans, but she tried to observe as much as she could. The size of the host grew as they marched, Mallister men joining from Seaguard, and Tully men fleeing from the defeat at Riverrun at the hands of the Kingslayer. Elena was not privy to her husband’s war councils, naturally, and so she could but guess at the strategy they planned to employ. She hoped to the gods it was a good one. Tales of Tywin Lannister’s army sweeping the Riverlands came to camp every day. Seemingly in retaliation, Robb sent Roose Bolton, the Lord of the Dreadfort, away from the rest of the army with a force of his own, an act that confused Elena greatly.

It was that night that she finally plucked up the courage to ask him about the war. It seemed before like something she shouldn’t speak of, though it was all around her, at least with Robb. Her task was to comfort him, _distract_ him, not remind him. But when she’d said as much to Lady Catelyn, she smiled and shook her head.

“I used to think that too, before my mother died. I thought a lady’s task was to sing and smile and please, and leave matters of politics and ruling to the men of my family. But when Mother died, I was put in charge of my father’s household, and I found that men need their women to share the burden a little. If you’re to be a good Lady of Winterfell, you must understand and share all your lord’s concerns.”

Elena thanked the Mother every day for sending her Catelyn Stark. Her education at the Twins had been mostly self-directed, and largely consisted of reading whatever fairy-tales and fables she pleased, with little to no study of Westerosi politics or history. No-one had ever told her what to expect in a marriage; no-one had ever expected she _would_ be married, at least not to a Lord Paramount. Lady Catelyn seemed to Elena the font of all wisdom in comparison to herself.

So Elena resolved to understand as much as she could of Robb’s plans. Even if talking to her own husband scared her to her core. She would try.

Robb was eating with her tonight, for once. Most nights he would wander the camp and talk to the men, sharing his meal with them. Elena admired that a little; she could see how well his men loved him already, though he was still just the heir and not the lord yet. Her father’s example might have told her that a lord could only rule by keeping his family and men down, but Elena looked at Robb and saw the better way.

They ate in silence. Elena ran her finger round the rim of her goblet and pondered her words.

“Does Lord Bolton ride to halt the Lannister advance through the Riverlands?”

Robb looked up from his plate, a little surprised. “Yes…”

“Is that wise? To split our – your forces, like that? Surely Tywin Lannister needs to be faced with all our strength.” Elena felt the blood rush to her face. Lady Catelyn said that sometimes a wife needed to question her husband, if only to understand better, but it felt unnatural.

Robb stared at his little bride, looking at her, _really_ looking, for the first time. Her big dark eyes were wide with nerves, but bold. What had his mother said? _Try her. She may surprise you yet._

“You’re right. But I don’t mean for Lord Bolton to prevail.”

Her brow furrowed as she took that in. “Why?”

“Tywin Lannister will be occupied with Bolton’s forces, and his son the Kingslayer will think, as you did, that all my force is behind him. He won’t see me coming upon him with the bulk of my army, not until it’s too late.”

“A feint.” Elena had a lot of half-brothers and cousins who were knights. She had grown up hearing enough military talk to remember that much.

“Precisely.” Robb smiled, and she couldn’t help but return it. It made her feel grown-up, sitting discussing military strategy with her husband. For weeks, she’d felt like a rag-doll, dragged around behind Robb and left to her own devices until he wanted to play with her. Lady Catelyn was kind, but naturally distracted by the plight her family was in. Elena had felt herself turning inwards, disappearing into herself until she was just a hollow shape of a girl. Now she found herself on surer ground.

“So you’ll take Ser Jaime by surprise and relieve the siege of Riverrun.” Robb nodded.

“We’ll arrive at Riverrun by tomorrow evening, perhaps the next morning, at the latest.” _So soon,_ Elena thought. “And then on to King’s Landing, to negotiate the release of Father and Sansa and Arya. And then home.” He sounded so wistful at that.

_Home._ The Twins floated into Elena’s mind, but of course he meant _his_ home, not hers. Winterfell, the ancient seat of House Stark.

“...What is it like?” She looked up at him through thick, dark lashes. Another pretty feature of hers, Robb noted. Theon had lamented when they first saw her that she was a homely, pimply little thing, but once you looked past the scars she wasn’t so bad. Her body was certainly lovely, her full breasts and little waist flaring out to smooth, wide hips. Theon hadn’t dared to say it again, and never would if Robb had anything to do with it. Suddenly, Robb became aware that she’d asked him a question.

“Pardon, my lady?”

“Winterfell. What is it like?” she asked again, shyly.

“It’s...” Robb struggled to describe it. _Beautiful_ wasn’t quite right. “It’s the greatest castle in the North.”

“Is it really so very cold?”

Robb chuckled. He liked the way she watched him, wide-eyed, and hung on his every word. “Not in the castle. The Builder found a hot spring, deep beneath the earth, and built there so the warm water flows through the walls and heats the ground.”

Elena grinned. “Tell me more.”

“They never levelled the ground, so some of the floors slope or are higher in some places, and there’s this covered bridge which connects the fourth floor of the bell tower to the second floor of the rookery...” He told her about the godswood with its great heart tree, and the glass gardens filled with plants and flowers. He tried to make it sound nice, the way Sansa would describe it, the way a girl would want it to sound. She seemed impressed.

“I pray we’ll be there soon.”

Elena fell asleep quickly that night, and for the first time Robb cupped an arm around her waist as he slept. The sensation was not unpleasant, but Elena found herself waking before the sun had risen, her stomach churning, and had to slip out from under his weight to throw up violently.

Robb raised his head groggily. “Elena?”

“It’s alright. Go back to sleep.” She didn’t want him to see her like this, so unattractive. She was beginning at last to feel like she was getting somewhere with him, and this would only set her back. Robb only shook his head sleepily and rolled over.

The final march towards Riverrun was a special kind of Hell for Elena. Her stomach refused to settle all day, and anything she tried to eat in the saddle soon came back up. Lady Catelyn kept a watchful eye on her, and finally suggested that she should see Riverrun’s maester as soon as the castle was won. It seemed to Elena that Lady Catelyn already had an idea what the matter was, and she herself had her suspicions, but she pushed them to the back of her mind. _Surely not. It’s far too soon for that._

The march was halted as dusk fell, and a hush seemed to fall over everything with it, tension rising in the air. Elena was to be left behind, with Lady Catelyn and thirty guards to take them back to Winterfell, should the battle go awry. Elena’s stomach tightened with fear this time. She had never been this close to death before.

Olyvar held Robb’s horse for him to mount up. Elena felt her throat constrict to look at him, her little half-brother, who looked so small beside the great destrier. _This is too serious a business for us, little one. We should be far away from here._ She fiddled with the blue ribbon at her wrist, as Robb wheeled his mount around to face her on her mare.

“My lady.” He was helm-less, clutching it under one arm in order to look her in the eye as he spoke. In the moonlight, his hair was almost black, his face white as bone. “Be safe. I promise to be back with you soon.”

Elena was aware of the eyes of his mother, and all his men, on her. She swallowed thickly, stomach turning once again. “I pray for your victory and safe return, husband.” She bunched her reins awkwardly in one hand and undid the ribbon with the tips of her fingers, drawing it out from under her sleeve. Silently, Robb proffered his arm, and she leaned out unsteadily to tie it as tight as she could over the smooth, freezing cold steel. It stood out, pale blue on silver steel.

She watched him ride away next to Lady Catelyn, the great grey direwolf shadowing him, his thirty companions behind. Five of Elena’s own kin were among them, alongside Torrhen and Eddard Karstark, Patrek Mallister, Smalljon Umber who Robb himself had pointed out to her, others whose names she did not know; even a woman, Dacey Mormont, whom Robb said was as brave and skilled a warrior as any man he’d ever known. Elena recognised the golden kraken on the black surcoat of Theon Greyjoy as he passed through a beam of moonlight, and the nausea came upon her again, as it did whenever she saw him in camp or made eye contact with him on the march. Something about him put a chill in her. She shivered, and shook her head, as if to shake away her silly childish fears. Though if ever there was a night for her to be afraid, surely it was tonight.

For a while, the night was deadly silent, but when they heard the first splashes and snorts of horses, the ringing of the bridles, Elena jumped a little. She glanced at Lady Catelyn, but she was staring straight ahead, oblivious to everyone around her. Elena held her breath, and listened. The Lannister men were shades in the woods, framed for an instant by black branches and then gone again, armour silver and black in the moonlight. Elena closed her eyes, and waited. The long, pondering blast of the warhorn echoed in her heart, thrumming through her bones, and the others answered, a chorus, like a wolfpack calling to each other through the night. _It’s started._

The noise was horrendous. Elena kept her eyes shut, but nothing could shut out the screams. She tried not to hear the pleas for mercy that went unheard, the bloody coughing of men choking on their own blood, the inhuman screams of the dying horses. She especially tried not to pick out the voices of those she knew, tried not to listen for Olyvar’s high little voice screaming thinly for his mother, for mercy, or her brothers pleading to be spared; in vain. She listened for them with all her might, and thanked the Mother when she didn’t. The valley played queer tricks with the sound; once, she heard Robb as clearly as if he lay in bed beside her, calling his men to him.

The clamour built and built until Elena could stand it no longer. She opened her eyes and glanced at Lady Catelyn, hoping she would feel the same, but her mother-in-law was a silent, black and stoic figure on her own horse, gazing out over the valley. Elena wheeled her own mare around.

“My lady -” one of her guards protested, but she cut him off.

“Take me back to camp,” she begged, trying to keep the tremble of fear from her voice.

Elena’s stomach betrayed her once again in her tent, though this time she felt it was more from the horror of the battle than anything else. Her cheeks were hot, and her eyes pricked with shameful tears. What right had she to cry or vomit? Was she lying in the mud, watching her life’s blood soak the ground? Had she lost a limb? Watched a brother die? All those boys who had never known the comfort she had, and who would now never go home to any kind of comfort. And why? On the whims of the Lannisters? Who were they to decide men’s fates?

Elena lay on the cot bed and let her tears soak the pillow, alone but for the flickering candles and glowing brazier. For once, the camp around her was silent. The fear crept in again, chilling her to the bone, and she begin to picture things, awful things. Little Olyvar, lying in the mud, eyes sightless and fixed on a sky full of stars he could not see. Her older brothers, men she had known since birth, had dandled her on their knees to play at riding horses, cut down in a single stroke. Robb. _Her_ Robb, who’d warmed her bed all these weeks, now cold and pale, dead from a hundred stab wounds, or his throat slit, mutilated -

As her horror reached its peak, she heard hooves.

_Is it over?_

She sat up. Leaving the tent, she saw the horses clattering in, but in the dark and her hysterical terror, she couldn’t tell whether they were friend or foe. Then the first rider dismounted and removed his helm, revealing Robb’s face. He didn’t smile, but she knew they’d prevailed all the same.

“Are you hurt?” she whispered, taking in his battered shield, the blood that covered him.

“No, my lady. Riverrun is ours.” He was starting to smile now, the joy of victory lighting up his eyes. His chest heaved under his plate. “The Kingslayer is captured.”

“My – my brother -”

“Olyvar is unharmed.” The relief washed through her and bore her into Robb’s arms. The crush of his still-armoured body hurt a little, but she held him tight all the same, feeling closer to him than she had to any person before. He smelt of blood and mud and sweat, but she didn’t care.

“I didn’t lose your favour,” he whispered in her ear. “You tied it good and tight.” She giggled a little. After all that, her little ribbon clung on still. “It’ll be my good luck charm now.” He pulled back a little, and kissed her.

“Robb, I have to tell you -” She had seen her stepmother, sisters-in-law, many and more women go through the same as she. She had not bled since Robb took her to wife. Her body swelled, and her breasts ached when she touched them. It was too soon, they had not been wed long, but it was possible. “- I think I am with child.”

Robb held her by the shoulders, and his blue eyes burned into hers. “Are you – are you certain?”

“Not until I’ve asked a maester. But I know the signs myself.” She waited nervously, sure this was not what he wanted, just another inconvenience, as her presence had been all along. But when he smiled, she knew she was safe.

“Elena, that is – I’m so -” He laughed, unable to finish, and swept her up into his arms until she was laughing too. For the first time, she felt like someone’s _wife_.

It was the first war council Elena had ever attended in her life. Robb said it was her right, as his wife, to hear the aftermath of the battle and the tally of the dead, the injured, the captured. She sat next to Lady Catelyn, and listened carefully. The Kingslayer, she knew already, had been taken. Close to a hundred knights had been taken along with him, and a dozen Westerlands lords; Westerling, Banefort, Estren, Brax...the names went on and on. Elena huddled in her furs, under the starlight, and listened.

“...Finally, my lords...” Robb turned to her, beaming. Elena frowned at him. _Now? When I haven’t even seen a maester?_ “I must tell you something. When I came back from the battle, I had news of our victory for my lady wife, but she also had news for me – that she carries my heir.”

A gale of cheers, laughter and shouted congratulations and blessings went up. Seated next to her, Lady Catelyn stared and then gave her a smile, though Elena sensed some distance behind it. Embarrassed by all the attention from the rugged Northern lords that surrounded her, Elena blushed and looked down at her gloved hands, twisted together in her lap.

“So, the little bride of the Bridge has a wolf pup inside her, eh?” roared Lord Umber. “Well, congratulations!” He left his seat and walked up the table to her. “Well, stand up, my girl, and let me embrace my lady!” She glanced at Lady Catelyn anxiously, who smiled again, and Elena stood and allowed herself to be swept into a bearhug. Over the Greatjon’s shoulder, she could see Robb hiding his laughter.

After that, others came to embrace her as well, all cold Northern standoffishness disappeared. Dacey Mormont squeezed her like a sister, grinning breathlessly, though they’d never exchanged so much as a word before. Young Olyvar was not too grown-up yet to hug his half-sister tight. Across the clearing, past the brightly burning braziers, Elena could see Theon Greyjoy watching her, a smile playing on his lips. He did not approach her, content to rise and slap Robb on the back, and nod his head to Elena herself. For that much, she was grateful. She did not want to know what he thought of her being with child.

The joyful cries and embraces of the Northerners were encouraging, though. Elena finally began to feel that one day she might win their respect as Lady of Winterfell, though not for a long time yet.

Robb was more careful with her that night than he ever had been. When he finished, he held her close for the first time, her head on his chest. She could feel the movement of his lungs, his heartbeat.

“Are you alright?” Elena found herself asking. There was something in his silence, in the way he was holding her, that suggested otherwise.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Robb replied quietly. Elena tipped her head back to look at him.

“The battle?” she asked softly. He nodded.

“All the training...it’s not the same. I don’t know how I survived…. No, I do. If it wasn’t for Eddard and Torrhen Karstark, Daryn Hornwood...they died that I might live.”

There was a vast, unnamable gulf between them that Elena could never hope to bridge if she lived for a thousand years. She saw that now. She would never see such things as he had seen, as he _would_ see for years to come. She pressed her lips to his chest, unable to speak, and Robb sighed and pulled the covers tighter around her shoulders.

It was early next morning, the rider came.

He had ridden without pause from King’s Landing for a day and half to bring the message. Robb took it from his hand himself, in the tent as they prepared to go on to Riverrun. Lady Catelyn enquired after her health, and Elena politely assured her she was well, and they continued to talk of pregnancy and cures for morning sickness as Robb read the message. It was only when he steadied himself with one hand on the camp chair, and crumpled the message up in a mailed fist, that the two women looked up.

“Robb? What is it?” Lady Catelyn asked. Robb looked up, blue eyes swimming.

“Father.” Elena had never heard anyone speak as he did, so much anger and grief shaking his voice and turning it husky. “The Lannisters...they executed him.”

A knife went through Elena. _Gods. So it begins._

Robb brushed past her and his mother and nearly ran from the tent. Lady Catelyn gave Elena a lost, haunted glance, and followed him.

The crossing to Riverrun was silent. All the joy at the news of Elena’s child and the victory they were already calling the Whispering Wood had drained out of Robb, and so drained out of the whole host. On the walls of Riverrun, the Tully men cheered for Winterfell and the Starks, but in the boats, Elena sat in silence next to her stony-faced husband and mother-in-law.

The great iron portcullis groaned as it lifted skyward to allow the Stark flotilla egress, dripping river water, mud and algae. Elena was already delighted with Riverrun, the seat of her father’s liegelord, Hoster Tully. Since childhood she had loved the water, the proud river that flowed beneath the Twins always whispering to her in her dreams, and she loved the way the water lapped at the walls of Riverrun also. The walls were golden sandstone, warm and welcoming. Robb alighted first, then Theon Greyjoy helped out Lady Catelyn. A Tully servant helped Elena alight the boat next. Ser Edmure Tully, the heir to Riverrun, awaited his sister and nephew on the steps, speaking to each in turn. He took Elena’s hand also, and she curtseyed politely.

“Lady Stark.”

Elena started, and then remembered. Gods, yes. _She_ was Lady Stark now.

“Ser Edmure. It’s an honour.”

“The honour is entirely mine, my lady. Congratulations. We heard your good news not long ago; a cheering thing in wartime.”

“Thank you, ser. The Freys of the Crossing all pray for your lord father’s recovery.” A lie, but a lady’s courtesy is her armour, as old Septa Elsinore had told Elena a thousand years ago.

Ser Edmure moved away to speak to his sister again, to comfort her in her grief, no doubt. Elena felt supremely uncomfortable. There was no way she could reach either Robb or Lady Catelyn in the depths of their mourning for Lord Eddard; she could not even try. Another girl might have rejoiced to find herself the Lady of Winterfell so soon, but Elena only felt sadness, for the pain Robb and Lady Catelyn did not deserve, fear for the Stark girls trapped in King’s Landing still, and pity for the little boys left in Winterfell who now had no father.

Lady Catelyn disappeared almost immediately to see her bedridden father, and Robb went to the godswood with some of his lords. Elena was left to milling about.

“Left to your own devices, my lady Stark?” Elena stiffened at the sound of that voice. Theon Greyjoy smirked at her from where he lounged against the wall.

“I know where I’m not needed, ser,” she replied pointedly. Not very clever, but then she’d never been as good at talking back as some of her sisters.

“I’m no ser, little lady.” He was still smiling. _Gods,_ she wanted to punch him.

“Why? Surely a man of your infinite talent on the battlefield warrants a knighthood.”

“Knighthood is not a sure sign of a great warrior.”

“No, but it is a sign of a man of honour. Perhaps that’s why you’ve never been offered it.”

Greyjoy coloured a little. “Do you consider the Kingslayer to be a man of _honour,_ little lady? Not all knights are like those of the songs. One day you’ll learn that.”

“If knighthood requires neither skill at arms, nor honour, then perhaps you’d care to explain to me why you could not muster up enough of either to warrant the name?” Elena asked, finding her mark at last. Greyjoy had no chance to reply, and Elena no chance to see the effect of her words, though, as a servant appeared at her elbow to escort her to her chamber, and she turned on her heel and left Theon Greyjoy standing there without a word.

Elena could not linger long in the airy, luxurious chambers the Tullys had set aside for her. Robb had called a council already, and she was expected to attend now. As the Lady of Winterfell. A dress more fitting for her position than the muddy, travel-stained wool she had been wearing was laid out for her, and Tully maids helped her lace the back and brushed the snags from her hair. When she went down to the Great Hall, most were already gathered there, and she took her place beside Lady Catelyn, pale with sorrow.

The news to be debated was this: Renly Baratheon had declared himself King of the Seven Kingdoms, over his nephew, Joffrey. The men argued the issue of declaring for one king or the other well into the night, and Elena slumped in her chair, eyes itching with exhaustion, stomach roiling with nausea. Some wanted to strike at Lord Tywin in Harrenhal and make a bloody end to the Lannisters, some wanted to march to their seat of power in Casterly Rock and cut them off from their great castle, and still others wanted to wait in Riverrun, or march to Storm’s End and declare for Renly. Blackwood and Bracken continued their famous and ancient feud over the table, banging the wood and yelling, compounding the pain in Elena’s head.

Robb had been silently listening for hours. Elena was roused to alertness once more when he finally spoke.

“Renly is not the king.”

“You cannot mean to hold to Joffrey, my lord,” Galbart Glover protested. “He put your father to death.”

“That makes him evil,” Robb replied. “I do not know that it makes Renly king. Joffrey is still Robert’s eldest trueborn son, so the throne is rightfully his by all the laws of the realm. Were he to die, and I mean to see that he does, he has a younger brother. Tommen is next in line after Joffrey.” _And after him, little Princess Myrcella, and after her still there is Lord Stannis. Robb is right, Renly has no claim._

“Tommen is no less a Lannister,” said one of the Riverlands knights. _Ser Marq Piper,_ Elena recalled. _He’s a hot-head, that one._

“As you say,” Robb conceded, “yet if neither one is king, still, how could it be Lord Renly? He’s Robert’s _younger_ brother. Bran can’t be Lord of Winterfell before me, and Renly can’t be king before Lord Stannis.”

“Stannis has the better claim,” agreed tall, fierce Lady Mormont.

“Renly is _crowned,”_ said Marq Piper. “Highgarden and Storm’s End support his claim, and the Dornishmen will not be laggardly. If Winterfell and Riverrun add their strength to his, he will have five of the seven great houses behind him. _Six,_ if the Arryns bestir themselves! Six against the Rock! My lords, within a year we will have all their heads on pikes, the queen and the boy king, Lord Tywin, the Imp, the Kingslayer, Ser Kevan, _all_ of them! That is what we shall win if we join with King Renly. What does Lord Stannis have against that, that we should cast it all aside?”

“The right,” Robb replied simply. Elena’s heart swelled with pride.

“So you mean us to declare for Stannis?” Ser Edmure asked.

“I do not know. I prayed to know what to do, but the gods did not answer. The Lannisters killed my father for a traitor, and we know that was a lie, but _if_ Joffrey is the rightful king and we fight against him, we _will_ be traitors.”

One of Elena’s oldest brothers, Ser Stevron, gave her a weaselly smile. Elena sighed. He was not a _bad_ man, per se, but he took too much after their father for her liking.

“My lord father would urge caution.” _Oh, naturally he would._ Elena tuned out of the conversation once more. When Stevron was done, more voices rose to shout him down, and on it went.

She heard again when Lady Catelyn at last spoke. “Why not a peace?” Elena looked up at her. _Perhaps. They started this to save Lord Eddard, but he’s past saving now. It would be sweet to go to Winterfell with Robb and have my baby in peace. I’ve had my taste of war, and I don’t like it._

Robb looked at his mother sadly. “My lady, they murdered my lord father, your husband.” He unsheathed his sword and laid it on the table. “This is the only peace I have for the Lannisters.”

“You are a woman, my lady,” the Greatjon replied. “Women do not understand these things.”

That angered Elena. Who here understood better than Lady Catelyn, who had lost a husband and may now lose two daughters and a son? What of Elena herself, and the babe she carried which might never see its father should this war continue? Her anger boiled inside of her as Lord Karstark started to talk, until it spilled over.

“You say we women do not understand these things,” she began, rising to be heard over all the men. They stuttered to a stop, amazed. Her voice sounded high and childish to her own ears, but she tried to stand tall. “But I think it is you who does not understand. Did you love your lord more than Lady Catelyn loved her husband? Do you love your lost sons more than she loves her daughters? Men die in battle, true, but it is always the women who pay the price. We go on living, without our husbands, our children, and we see the full measure of your wars at the end of the day.”

Her face was burning, and her hands were slick with sweat. The whole hall stared at her, and regret began to prick at her. She should not have spoken. She had shamed herself, shamed Robb, in front of all these high lords and hardened warriors. But Lady Catelyn was looking at her with something like gratitude, and a little like admiration, and Lady Mormont was nodding. The Greatjon broke the silence with a great shout of laughter.

“So the little bride has a tongue in her head! And she’s learned to use it well, it seems, giving all us old men a telling off. It’s my lord’s wolf pup growing inside her, giving her strength and making her fierce, no doubt.” Laughter rippled around the hall, not mocking or unkind, but warm. Elena smiled a little shakily, and sat.

“Well said, my lady,” Robb said gently. “But the fact remains, what is peace today if we must pick up our swords tomorrow? If we write an end to this, it must be a final end, and that can only be written in blood.”

Elena saw now. Robb may have sworn to protect and love her all her days in the sept at the Twins, but she saw his true bride laid on the table before them, glimmering sharp and deadly in the candlelight.

She glanced at Lady Catelyn sadly. _I’m sorry. I tried to help._ The older woman smiled back, equally as sadly.

There were more words, more shouts, more oaths. Elena had stopped listening. It mattered not what they said; whatever it was, on the morrow they would be just as at war as they were today.

“ _MY LORDS!”_ The Greatjon’s roar startled Elena into listening once more. “Here is what I say to these two kings!” He spat. “Renly Baratheon is nothing to me, nor Stannis neither. Why should they rule me from some flowery seat in Highgarden or Dorne? What do they know of the Wall or the wolfswood or the barrows of the First Men? Even their _gods_ are wrong. The Others take the Lannisters as well, I’ve had a bellyfull of them.” He drew his greatsword. “Why shouldn’t we rule ourselves again? It was the dragons we married, and the dragons are all dead.” Elena’s stomach swooped. “There sits the only king I mean to bend the knee too.” He pointed with the blade to Robb. “The King in the North!”

And before she could even take it in, they had all taken up the cry, laying their swords at Robb’s feet and crying to the rafters, shaking the very foundations of the castle:

“The King in the North!”

“The King in the North!”

“ _The King in the North!”_

_Oh, gods help me. Gods help us all._


	4. sun and moon, guide us to the hour of glory and honour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i lost my copy of acok and totally forgot about the walders but fuck those little bastards. d&d erased them first dont @ me

The walls of Winterfell were the largest Elena had ever seen. As she and her little party of protectors approached, she counted fully thirty watchtowers, and marvelled at the great double walls and the enormous keep they contained. Raised in the cramped warren of the Twins, she had never seen a castle so big; it dwarfed even Riverrun. She looked on it, and felt a chill go through her; this place had been here and thousand years before her, and would be here a thousand years after she was nothing but dust, that much she knew.

Robb had sent her North a mere few days after their coronation, and it was hard not to feel slighted, though Elena tried her best. His rationale was sound; a military encampment was no place for a woman with child, much less a queen carrying the heir to a kingdom. She should leave while she could still travel, before she became too big with child. And, he said, he needed his queen to rule Winterfell for him in his absence. Which was what Elena was now. A queen. She was still utterly unused to the idea; in truth, she doubted she ever would be. Ser Rodrik Cassel and the other Northern warriors Robb had commanded to her honour guard could call her ‘Your Grace’ all they pleased; she would never feel a queen.

They had given her a crown, yes. A smaller twin of Robb’s, bronze and steel and iron, no gold and no jewels. It weighed heavy on her head and made her temples ache, so she kept it in her trunk, wrapped in a shawl to keep it safe. It was of the North, like Robb, like Winterfell, and it didn’t sit right with her.

Riverrun’s maester said she was five weeks or so along with the child, which caused delight among the more superstitious of the knights and lords and the women of the castle; all over Westeros, a wedding-night child was considered a blessing and enormous good luck. From the way she was carrying, traditional wisdom would suggest a boy, although the maester told her this was by no means assured. Everyone seemed to take it as fact that Elena would deliver an heir, however, which caused her great anxiety; if she disappointed and produced a girl instead, she didn’t think she could stand the shame. She was already an outsider in the North, too lowly a girl to rightfully be called Robb’s queen in the eyes of his lords, who all thought their daughters, true Northern maidens, had the better claim to their king’s hand. To give birth to a girl would prove her weak and unworthy in their eyes. And she couldn’t bear to disappoint Robb, or Lady Catelyn.

Lady Catelyn had held her tight before Elena stepped into the boat to take her from Riverrun. “I married the North as well child, and in the North, the cold winds will blow. But Winterfell is warm and welcoming, believe me. I made it my home, and you will too.”

Robb’s kiss goodbye was less dutiful than the one he gave her before the Whispering Wood, or maybe that was just her hopeful mind playing tricks on her. His hand pressed to the little bump, unnoticeable still to those who did not know her body as well as he did. “Be safe, my queen.”

“ _You_ be safe. You’re the one fighting a war, not me.”

Robb chuckled a little at that. “All right. I’ll be careful, I promise. Soon I’ll join you in Winterfell – you and my little prince.” He beamed at her, as he did whenever the child was brought up. Elena tried to smile back.

The rowing boat carried her out of the castle, rocking with the swell. Elena craned her neck to watch Robb on the little wooden dock, his hair glinting like fire in the sunlight.  _Gods willing, he will follow me soon. If I give him a son, he may grow to love me, to truly love me, and we'll be happy together. We'll be home._

So off she went, surrounded by a hundred of Robb’s men, commanded by Ser Rodrik Cassel, Winterfell’s master-at-arms. Elena and Lady Catelyn both had protested that a hundred was too much, that fifty or sixty would do, but Robb would not hear it, and they lost that battle too. For weeks the men were her only company, and though at first they were respectful but cold, Elena soon came to know a queer, gruff kind of kindness from them, especially Ser Rodrik. They treated her as if she were made of crystal, more precious than any jewel they could be carrying; it amused Elena, who had never been treated with such deference, but she couldn’t deny that she also enjoyed it. She walked among them, ate with them, listened to them talk about their wives and their children and the battles they had won, and found herself belonging more and more, day by day. When they reached Winterfell, however, that feeling slipped away.

The people of the winter town beneath the walls all cheered her progress to the gates, not waving banners as they might have in the South, but shouting “Winterfell!” in their thick accents that sounded so harsh and alien to Elena’s ears. Coming through the gate, mounted high on a new, well-bred grey mare from Riverrun’s stables, a gift from Ser Edmure, Elena was greeted by the entire people of Winterfell; more than a hundred servants, guards, grooms and huntsmen. Standing before them all was the castle’s maester, and near him two young boys Elena presumed to be Robb’s little brothers, Prince Brandon and Prince Rickon. They were easy to tell apart; Prince Brandon was, by necessity, seated on a sedan chair rather than standing. Both shared Robb’s auburn curls and blue eyes. Their direwolves sniffed the air as she approached, but Elena knew not to be afraid. Grey Wind had taught her to stand her ground with the wolves; it wasn’t easy, great beasts that they were, but it was possible.

Elena dismounted with help from Ser Rodrik. The men all bowed their heads, and the women curtseyed, as she stared around her like a newborn foal wandered from its stall. Yes, the massive walls of pale grey stone and the leaning, ancient towers had a harsh beauty to them, but Elena could not describe Winterfell as welcoming. This was not a place that welcomed outsiders.

Its people were more so, though. Maester Luwin stepped forward to introduce himself; Elena found herself trusting him almost immediately.

“My queen, welcome to Winterfell. We are all at your service.”

“Thank you, maester.”

“Lady Catelyn wrote ahead to tell us of your happy news,” he smiled gently. “I want you to know, you are in safe hands here.”

“I’m glad to hear of that.” She hoped he did not detect the note of fear in her voice. She was not looking forward to the delivery of her child; her hands went instinctively to her stomach.

“Lady Catelyn also told me you wish to know more of the North. I hope you will not consider me impertinent when I invite you to my chambers whenever you wish, to study Northern politics and heraldry.”

“Not at all,” she smiled with real relief. “I’d be grateful for your counsel.”

Next, the little princes. Elena had dealt with intractable children many times before; she anticipated that the boys would either be disinterested in a boring girl, resentful of her lording over them and in their eyes replacing their mother as lady of the castle, or merely too full of grief for their father, and longing for their mother, sisters and brother to think much of her at all. She steeled herself for a cold welcome, or even an outright rude one.

She wasn’t far wrong. Prince Rickon squinted up at her when she introduced herself, and Elena could see that, young as he was, he would not guard his tongue.

“Did you bring my mother with you?”

Elena knelt a little in the frosted ground to place her face level with his. “No, my prince. She had to stay with Robb. But she told me to tell you that she misses you, very much, and that she _will_ come home, as soon as she can.”

“When?” demanded Prince Brandon. Only seven, but already his stony face and cold-eyed gaze spoke of the hardships he’d endured. _They’re only confused, frightened little boys who want their mother. I must be gentle, and patient as I can be._

“I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry doesn’t help.”

“ _Brandon,”_ Maester Luwin scolded gently, but Elena waved it away.

“I know it doesn't. But your mother and Robb can only come home if they win this war. The only way this ends is if Robb rescues your sisters from King’s Landing. Then they can all come home, but not before.” She hoped he would respect her honesty. Children are curious like that; they cannot be treated like adults, but they _hate_ to be treated like the children they are. Immature, but demanding maturity. Interacting with them is like walking a narrow bridge, and so many bad parents fall to either one side or the other – either babying their offspring too much, or denying them their childhood.

Brandon studied the muddy ground for a minute, and then looked back up at her. “Alright.”

Elena turned to Rickon with a bright smile. “ _And_ I have two gifts for you from your mother, little prince. Would you like to see?” He nodded, cautiously. Elena opened her palm to reveal the little wooden direwolf Lady Catelyn had had carved for her youngest boy. He leaned in, delighted, to take it, and Elena saw her opportunity to do what else Lady Catelyn had asked. “And your other gift is – _this!”_ She carefully planted a kiss on his cheek. Surprised, Rickon giggled riotously. Elena caught Brandon’s cautious smile as she stood back up, but he frowned again as soon as he saw her looking.

Elena allowed herself to be led to her chambers. Maester Luwin accompanied her, explaining the state of the ledgers and how the castle was provisioned, which men were in charge of the stores and the stables and the kennels. She tried her best to listen carefully, but she had so little experience running a household that she felt a little lost despite her best efforts. Maester Luwin smiled as they reached her chamber.

“If you’re wondering how you’re going to keep track of all this, Your Grace, please don’t. We shall soon work it all out, you and I.”

“I’m glad to see I shall not be alone in all this.”

“Oh, never,” he smiled.

Elena’s chambers were vast, and included her own solar, dressing room, and separate bedroom should she ever need to sleep apart from Robb. She moved from room to room, and quickly realised with horror what she was looking at.

“These are the lord’s chambers!” she exclaimed with foolish surprise to her new maid. She nodded.

“Well, yes, Your Grace. You are the Queen.”

“But I -” She couldn’t sleep here. This was Lady Catelyn’s room, Lord Eddard’s. It belonged to them, and always would. No wonder Prince Brandon was hostile toward her, if he knew she was taking his parent’s chambers for her own. But she dare not protest any further; her maid was right, after all. She was the Queen, for better or ill. _So far, mostly for ill._

They were holding a small feast in her honour that night, and though Elena had again protested that she needed no such thing, she also realised that it had to be. It would always be like this from now on, she supposed; she would never again be able to blend into the background as she was used to. She was the most important person in this castle, at least until her baby was born, or Robb returned.

Her handmaiden dressed her in a gown of grey silk, slashed to show the thick fur lining underneath. Alyx had been right, they had made her a whole new wardrobe in advance of her coming, taking her measurements from her dresses sent from the Twins. Silk and velvet were paired with fur and wool, and though all the gowns were very beautiful, they were also all practical and warm. Some had higher and more forgiving waistlines, to accommodate her growing stomach as her pregnancy progressed.

The maid dressed her hair in the simple fashion of the North, leaving most of it loose and flowing in shining chocolate waves over her shoulders, braiding two thick sections from her temples back, and binding them at the back of her head. Elena studied her in the mirror as she worked.

“I still haven’t asked your name.”

“Beth, as it please Your Grace. Beth Cassel.” She was a sweet young thing, with a mane of auburn hair. Elena smiled at her in the mirror.

“Ser Rodrik’s girl. He spoke of you on the journey home, I’m pleased to finally meet you.”

“Yes, Your Grace, and thank you. It’s very fine to have you here too.” Polite, but clearly very shy. It was a queer feeling for Elena to realise that she was the one with all the power here, so used to being browbeaten by her family. She resolved to be kind to little Beth; gods knew Elena herself had never been shown much kindness.

“You do hair beautifully, Beth. Much better than I did my sisters’ at the Twins.”

“Thank you, Your Grace. I learned on Lady Sansa’s hair. She liked it done pretty – I mean, likes.” The girl went a little red.

“If you did hers half as well as mine, I’m sure she could find no fault at all.” Beth’s smile was shy, but bright.

“Thank you very much, Your Grace.”

Elena hadn’t realised how hungry she was until she actually saw the food laid out in front of her. She tried to resist ripping a roll of crusty bread still hot from the ovens apart in her hands, or eating from two chicken legs at the same time. Her sweet tooth was sated at last; on bowls of berries and cream, frosted with sugar. Elena had been travelling up and down the country without more than a day or two of real rest for nigh-on two moons, she realised suddenly. She had never travelled so far in her life, let alone for so long. Gazing around the hall, brightly lit with candles and lined with crackling fireplaces, filled with laughing, talking people, she wondered if she had at last come to her journey’s end.

As they ate, the people of the castle came up to introduce themselves individually, and Elena found that contrary to her original impression of Northerners as a cold, uninviting people, they were actually quite warm and merry when at home. She realised her original impression was based off soldiers on a march, men who were soon to be in battle, who had lost their lord and had been plunged headlong into war. Like a silly girl, she had taken the Northern stereotype at face value, and done nothing to challenge that view. She resolved to be a better judge of character in future. _A queen has to understand her people._

Elena had never in her life slept alone. Even before she was married, she and her sisters shared a bed. The great sleigh bed in her chamber felt like a vast island, surrounded by a sea of solitude. True to Robb’s word, the walls were warm with the lifeblood of the castle, the hot springs Bran the Builder found all those thousands of years ago, but Elena still shivered. She sat up in bed, furs around her shoulders, and tried to convince herself to blow her candle out, in vain. The castle seemed to breathe, all around her; its wooden floors creaked as the whole structure settled, and whispers seemed to be in the air. How many lives had been lived out in this place? How many people had been born, lived, loved and died here? Elena tried to keep her itching, aching eyes open, but it was those grim thoughts that carried her off into oblivion.

The next morning, she ate a breakfast of buttered hot bread and porridge, Beth dressed her in deep blue silk over thick white linen, and Elena made her way to Maester Luwin’s chambers, determined to start learning the politics and customs of the North immediately.

When she pushed the door open and leaned her head round the door, however, she saw Prince Brandon already there, seated next to Maester Luwin with books spread over the table. When Brandon saw her, he glared.

“My queen,” Luwin greeted her, standing. Elena shook her head.

“Please, I don’t wish to interrupt. I can come back.”

“No need, we can continue our lesson later -”

“She can stay.”

Elena and Luwin both looked at the young prince with surprise.

“I’m sure Queen Elena doesn’t wish to learn with someone so young, Bran,” Luwin said, not unkindly. Elena shook her head.

“No. I’m sure my education is level with Prince Brandon’s – probably less, actually. My septa died when I was very young, and my father never replaced her. He has many children, and our education was very sporadic. I’d be happy to learn with you,” she smiled, directing the last at Brandon, who did not smile. He was testing her, she suddenly realised, though whether she was passing the test or not she couldn’t tell. “I’m probably more in need of teaching.”

“Well, my prince?” Luwin asked gently. Brandon’s eyes were fixed on the table as he picked moodily at a splinter.

“Like I said. She can stay.” Elena sat down cautiously next to him.

“Thank you, my prince.”

“You should call me Bran. No-one really calls me Brandon, and I don’t like being called ‘prince’.”

“As you say, Bran. My siblings call me Elly. Perhaps you could as well, once we know each other a little better.” Bran said nothing to that, but he was no longer glaring, which Elena counted as better than nothing.

“Where would you like to start, Your Grace?”

“Wherever you were when I came in. I’m sure I’ll catch up.”

“We were discussing Robert’s Rebellion, an interest of Bran’s lately.”

“I wanted to know about the Sack of King’s Landing,” Bran supplied. _Grim topic for a seven year old. Although, given recent events, hardly surprising._

“I know a little about it.” She knew her father laughed about not turning up in time for the Trident, mocking Hoster Tully and his allies for fools and boasting of his wisdom in not declaring for either side before it became clear Robert would win. She wondered, not for the first time, what had possessed him to declare for Robb so soon. The promise of influence over Winterfell through her son, no doubt.

“We have Maester Yendel’s history of the Seven Kingdoms here, detailing the key players.” Luwin showed her the open page. Elena leaned over and traced her finger below the words as she read aloud.

“Rhaegar, Prince of Dragonstone...Robert Baratheon, Lord of Storm’s End...Lyanna Stark...”

“My aunt,” Bran said simply. Elena nodded and kept going.

“...Elia of Dorne.”

“Rhaegar’s bride,” Luwin said. “It was a great tragedy that befell her.”

“What did happen to her?” Elena asked.

“Rhaegar left her to steal away my aunt,” Bran supplied, brows knitted. “He set her aside after he crowned Lyanna the queen of love and beauty at a tourney instead of her, even though she was his wife, and he was supposed to love her.”

“Yes, that is true,” Luwin replied, “But later, when Lord Tywin Lannister took the city, she suffered a worse fate than that.”

Elena shivered. _Tywin Lannister._ Somewhere, hundreds of leagues away, that man plotted to kill her husband and destroy her house, root and stem. “What did he do to her?”

Luwin looked at her carefully. “There is no proof that Tywin ordered it done...but it is whispered that his mad dog, Ser Gregor Clegane, raped Elia and murdered her and her infant son on Lord Tywin’s orders.”

“Is it true?” Bran asked.

“That I do not know. But the fact remains, she met a sad and terrible end, one she did not deserve. By all accounts, she was a kind and gentle woman.”

 _And her baby boy did nothing wrong, save being born a Targaryen._ Elena pressed a hand to her little bump once again, feeling the shape under the silk of her gown tenderly.

“Tell us about the tourney at Harrenhal,” Bran demanded. “I bet Elena doesn’t know anything about _that.”_ Elena noticed the use of her name for the first time.

“This is sounding more like a storytelling than a lesson,” Maester Luwin chided gently.

“Please, I want to hear,” Elena said quickly, shooting Bran a smile he still did not return; though his gaze was a little less hostile than before.

“Very well, Your Grace. The tourney at Harrenhal is credited as the event which sparked Robert’s Rebellion. It was held in 281 AC, the Year of the False Spring, by Lord Whent of Harrenhal in honour of his maiden daughter’s nameday.”

“Lord Whent?”

“Yes, Your Grace?”

“Do you know what his daughter’s name was?”

Luwin smiled warmly. “Yes, Your Grace. Her name was Lady Sarya.”

 _My mother._ Elena’s chest felt strange. “Robert’s Rebellion was started because of my mother’s nameday?”

Luwin nodded. “In a manner of speaking, yes. The greatest knights of the Seven Kingdoms gathered to compete in her name.” _Fate is such a funny thing. My mother was younger than I am now when the rebellion started, and now her daughter is wed to the son of one of its heroes, and he too is a rebel._ “For seven days, they contended with lance and sword beneath Harrenhal’s great walls.”

“Tell her about the Knight of the Laughing Tree,” Bran urged.

“Ah, the mystery knight. He appeared on the second day of the tourney, so named because his shield bore the device of a weirwood tree carved with a laughing face. He unhorsed three men in successive tilts, but when the Mad King demanded he show his face, he disappeared.”

“Why a face?”

“Your Grace?”

“Why did the tree have a face?”

“Have you never seen a heart tree before?” Bran asked. Elena shook her head.

They all visited Winterfell’s godswood together; Bran carried by the gentle giant, Hodor, Rickon holding a hand of a woman with a wild shock of hair, Maester Luwin, and Elena herself. The wolves padded behind.

“Elena, this is Osha,” Bran explained. “She attacked us in the wolfswood but Theon stopped her. We took her prisoner, but now she’s our friend.” Elena regarded her warily, but the woman smiled.

“Pleased to meet you, little queen.”

Elena nodded.

The forest drew them in.

Their footsteps were swallowed by the moss that carpeted the forest floor. The trees grew so close as to almost block out the pale sunlight. It was so quiet, Elena hardly dared to breathe.

The sept had never held much special significance for Elena. She had been named in the light of the Seven, true, and yes she knew all the hymns and prayers. She had wed Robb in the ceremony of the South, not the North, but the gods she had been born with had always felt unreal, like the characters in her books, not real, not present. What she found in Winterfell’s godswood was much different. Here, she felt something. She couldn’t put her finger on it; but she felt like she was being watched. By something benign, something that meant her well, but something powerful. Something she could never understand. The heart tree bent over the black pool in the centre of the forest. Elena leaned over and saw her own face, reflected in the still black water. She looked wide-eyed and vulnerable. The eyes of the tree watched her.

The wolves loped through the trees, and Rickon followed with shouts of laughter. Luwin watched them with a careful eye, but the eyes of Osha and Bran were on Elena.

“Well? What do you think?” Bran asked. _This is another test._

“I think it knows I don’t belong here,” Elena answered quietly.

“Maybe not yet,” Osha replied. “But one day, little queen. One day.”

That night as she tried to sleep once more, Elena could still feel the eyes on her. She got up at last and went to the window, looked down at the moon-soaked yard, all the stone white as bone. The castle looked like it was made of snow.

“Mother?”

Elena whirled around at the small voice. Little Rickon stood in the doorway, clutching his arms around his shoulder, eyes clouded with sleep and tears. Elena went to him.

“I’m sorry, little one, I’m not your mother. What’s the matter?” She pushed his messy red curls off his forehead as she did sometimes with the youngest of her brothers.

“I had a nightmare. I want _Mother.”_

“I know you do, sweet child. I know you do.”

“Bran can’t sleep either. Mother sings to us when we can’t sleep, but she’s not _here,_ I can’t _find_ her...” Tears began to trickle down his cheeks again. Elena wrapped her furs around her shoulders more securely and bent to pick him up.

“It’s alright, lamb, it’s all alright...”

Bran’s eyes were big and dark, drinking in the light of the candles. They shone with unshed tears.

“It seems we all can’t sleep,” Elena whispered softly, depositing Rickon on Bran’s bed. “What shall we do?”

Bran shrugged. He looked as miserable as Elena had ever seen anyone. She sat on the bed as well, and Rickon immediately burrowed into her side.

“Sing to us,” he demanded in a small voice. Elena looked to Bran for permission. If he let her do this, perhaps she had gotten through to him after all.

Bran nodded. “Please,” he said quietly.

Elena sang them every song she knew, the tales of battle first, since boys liked those better than those about true love and romance. She lay between the boys, an arm around each of them, huddled under the furs, and sang softly until her voice was nearly gone. When their eyes started to droop, she turned to the only lullaby she knew.

It wasn’t right for boys, but she remembered someone singing it to her, and had sung it to her sisters in turn, when they couldn’t sleep for nightmares.

_Little baby, hear my voice_

_Beside you, oh maiden fair_

_Our young lady, grow and see_

_Your land, your true land here_

_Sun and moon, guide us_

_To the hour of glory and honour_

_Little baby, our young lady_

_Noble maiden fair_

As she sung, Elena’s own lids began to droop; and that was where dawn found her at last, curled like a she-wolf with the two Stark boys laid in her arms like pups with their mother.


	5. born again with each sunrise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i found my copy of acok again so. welcome to hell

The sky was steel grey and the air sharp as Elena crossed the yard and headed to the godswood. Maester Luwin had asked her to find Bran for his lessons. Her grey and sky blue silk skirt fluttered behind her. The long flowing skirt hid her growing stomach subtly, but the wind pressed it to the proud shape. Over it, she wore a grey wool cloak lined with fur, the collar warm around her throat, a silver direwolf pin clutching it tight. Above her, the comet was a red gash, a bleeding wound in the skin of the clouds. It had appeared only days ago, and showed no sign of fading. Elena watched it as she walked.

She found Bran with Hodor and Osha where she knew she would, beneath the heart tree. Osha nodded as she approached.

“How d’you feel, little queen?” She nodded at the bump. Elena pressed a hand to it.

“Better since I took your advice. I haven’t been sick in three days. Thank you.” The leaves of the plant Osha had pointed out to her were bitter, but when Elena chewed them they settled her stomach instantly.

“Does Maester Luwin want me?” Bran asked. He was laid on his stomach in front of the pool, staring at his reflection in the black water.

“Yes, it’s time for lessons.” From the undergrowth, Summer padded silently. He loped up to Elena and pressed his nose against her side, looking to be scratched behind the ears, which she dutifully did. Bran’s eyes remained on the shivering surface of the water. Elena sat down beside him. “The wolf dream again?” she asked, knowing the answer. In the obsidian reflection, Bran nodded.

They’d taking to sharing Bran’s bed, all three of them, Elena, Rickon and Bran. It was better than sleeping alone, felt more natural. They talked and laughed and sang and told stories. Elena was just trying to keep their minds off their grief, really. They were all sleeping much better, though as her pregnancy progressed, Elena found herself tossing and turning more. One night she was woken, not by her own unsettled stomach, but by Bran’s cry.

He was pale, soaked with cold sweat, and wide-eyed. Elena sat up. Rickon slept on, unaware.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Elena whispered.

“A dream...” Bran’s eyes were big and dark and unreadable. He stared at Elena as if he didn’t know her. “I’ve had it a lot, recently. The same dream...well, not exactly. I’m running through the godswood.” _Nothing strange in that, to dream of something you’ve lost._ “I run with Shaggydog, we hunt...I can feel the pine needles under my paws, the wind in my pelt, taste blood when we make a fresh kill...” His eyes were black holes. Elena felt like she was sinking, down, down, down. The way he talked... _my paws. My pelt._

“You say you can...see through Summer’s eyes?”

“Not just see. I can feel everything he feels.” A shiver went through him. “It frightens me.”

_It frightens me too,_ Elena thought, but didn’t say so. Instead, she wrapped her arms around him. “Don’t be frightened. They’re only dreams.”

“They feel real.”

“All dreams feel real while we’re dreaming. But when we wake, we see that it was all imagined, and the waking world is the only real thing.” In her stomach, something moved; a flutter of birds wings, light as a kiss. Elena jumped.

“What’s wrong?” Bran asked. Elena pressed a hand to her stomach.

“The baby moved.” Bran’s dark curious eyes dropped to the bump. Elena smiled. “Want to feel?” He nodded, and she took his hand and held it there. After a moment or two of still quiet, the sensation came again, harder and sharper this time. Elena gritted her teeth and Bran gasped quietly.

“Did you never feel it when your mother had Rickon?”

“Maybe, I don’t remember. Does it hurt?”

“Not yet. Maester Luwin said he may kick harder as he gets stronger. One of my brother’s wives broke a rib with it.” Bran looked shocked, so she smiled and shook her head. “It’s not a common thing. I’ll be fine.”

“Doesn’t it feel strange, though?”

“Yes.” It frightened her a little, to feel something living and growing inside her, and the thought of it coming out frightened her even more. _When it comes time, I must be strong. As strong as Robb. I have his child inside me, and maybe I have his courage inside me too._

Bran had the wolf dream every night, and most nights he woke before dawn, troubled. Eventually, Elena went to Maester Luwin, who spoke gently to Bran and gave him dreamwine to help him sleep. After that, Bran did not wake up and no longer complained of the dreams, but Elena wondered if it was more that he simply didn’t want to speak of them any longer, than that he had stopped having them.

Osha had walked closer as Elena and Bran watched the water, and now she sat down next to them.

“You should not fight so hard, boy. I see you talking to the heart tree. Might be the gods are trying to talk back.”

“Is that a message from the gods too?” Elena asked, looking up at the comet. The men-at-arms said it was to show Lord Eddard’s murder at the hands of the Lannisters, and Septon Chayle said it marked the death of summer and the slow decline into winter. Osha scoffed at all of that.

“Stars don’t fall for men, little queen, and not for the winter neither. That comet means one thing. Dragons.”

“The dragons are all dead,” Elena said. Osha just looked at her, and smiled.

Even in times of war, life went on.

Elena’s duties extended to checking the castle incomes with the steward, talking of horses with the Master of Horse and food stores with the cook, with Rickon clinging to her skirts or in her arms more often than not. Sometimes he still called her ‘Mother’, and Elena was unsure whether it was an honest mistake, or if he simply wanted to pretend she was truly Lady Catelyn. She found he was a sweet little thing, growing less fractious as time went by, but both Bran and Rickon retained an angry sadness Elena could hardly blame them for. At night, Shaggydog and Summer howled, their voices echoing off the walls of the castle and drifting in at the windows like ghosts. It was the loneliest sound Elena had ever heard.

The white raven came from the Citadel to warn of the approaching winter in Elena’s fourth week at Winterfell. Already, snowflakes drifted in the frigid air. Elena didn’t mind; the snow was so beautiful, so lovely to watch curled up on the window seat with the warm walls all around and a book open on her lap. Whatever free time she had, she usually spent in Maester Luwin’s chambers, with the few books that survived the fire in the library tower. It reminded her of her childhood.

“Another letter from your lord father, my queen,” Luwin said quietly. Elena looked up from her book.

“Thank you, maester.” The letters had started coming a week after Elena arrived at Winterfell. Elena burned them all unopened. It was spiteful, she knew, but she wanted no more reminders of her father and her family, not here, where she was finally free of them. It would only be full of reminders to represent House Frey’s interests to Robb, clumsy attempts by her father to exert influence through her, as if she had any influence to exert. When Luwin bowed and left her, she dropped it in the fire, watched the image of the Twins in the wax seal bubbled and melt away to nothing, the paper crack and curl and crumble to ash.

They were expecting Lord Manderly’s party that morning for the harvest feast. Elena had overseen the arrangements for the feast and entertainments as best she could, with Maester Luwin and the steward at her side, but her stomach was still a nest of vipers despite Osha’s cure. The people of Winterfell treated her with respect, respect which Elena tried to earn by following Robb’s example of speaking to her people, getting to know them, their worries and loves and the names of their children. The northern lords were a different matter altogether. She didn’t know if she could act the queen to them, grown men, warriors with more life experience and wisdom than she could reasonably expect to ever have.

“We have enough to feed all of them?” she whispered to Maester Luwin. They were in the Great Hall. Elena was seated on the great stone chair with the wolf armrests on the dias, Bran and Rickon to either side of her, on smaller chairs, and Maester Luwin and Ser Rodrik stood behind her. Her crown bit into her temples and her braided hair made her scalp ache. Her feet did not quite brush the floor. She wore grey wool and dark fur; today of all days she must look a Stark.

“More than enough, my queen,” Luwin murmured back. “Do not concern yourself.”

Lord Manderly was an enormous man; too fat to sit a horse, he had made the journey to Winterfell by barge up the White Knife and by litter the rest of the way. He brought with him knights, squires, singers, jugglers, lesser lords and ladies sworn to White Harbour; a glittering train of what seemed to Elena like half the people in the North. He beamed up at her as she welcomed him to Winterfell.

“Thank you, Your Grace. I pray every day for a swift end to this war, for justice, and for our king to be soon safe at home...and back in his lovely wife’s arms, where he belongs!” He laughed, and winked. Elena tried for a gracious smile.

“Your prayers are welcome, Lord Wyman. I too pray for peace.” She wondered what he saw when he looked at her. Did he truly see a queen, a Stark queen with a cold, stern kind of beauty, with a crown like a circle of iron swords on her brow? Or did he see nothing but a nervous, pregnant teenage girl, huddled in her furs, in a chair too big for her and a crown too heavy?

Once all the introductions were made, the steward stepped forward to show the White Harbour guests to their rooms, and Elena took her leave.

“Well, that’s over,” she murmured to Ser Rodrik as they strode down the corridor.

“No, Your Grace,” Ser Rodrik said respectfully. “I think this is only the beginning. The feast makes a pleasant pretext, but a man does not cross a hundred leagues for a sliver of duck and a cup of wine. Lord Wyman has some matter of import to put before you, I am sure. As will many others.”

Elena felt sick again. How long would she have to do this alone? When would Robb come home? _He_ was their king, their true leader, not her. Her head pounded, and she longed to take off her crown, unbind her hair, and sleep.

“Pray excuse me,” she said to Ser Rodrik and Maester Luwin stiffly. “I wish to retire and sleep a while before the feast.”

“Are you well, Your Grace?” Luwin asked with concern.

“Perfectly. I just need some refreshment.”

“As you will, Your Grace.” Both men bowed and left her at the door to her chamber. Once inside, Elena gratefully removed her crown, and Beth helped her unwind her hair. Groaning a little with relief, Elena ran her fingers through the roots, and massaged her aching temples. She slipped into sleep on the couch before the flickering fire, but it was disturbed by dreams. When she awoke, sweat trickling down her face and back, she could remember nothing of them but blood, steaming in the snow.

The feast passed in a blur. Elena’s stomach still roiled despite chewing Osha’s leaves, so she ate nothing, and dare not drink either, for lately she could have barely a cup without squirming in her seat with desperation. She watched the flames flickering in the brazier and let the individual sounds of the feast around her fade to a dull roar.

When she woke the next day, eyes swollen and aching from a disturbed night, she found herself late for her audience with Lord Wyman. Beth washed and dressed her as quickly as possible, the task made awkward and slow by her growing belly. She made her apologies to Lord Wyman, who laughed and waved them away.

“A queen is never late, Your Grace. Those who get there before her are simply early.”

Lord Wyman talked a lot, for which Elena was duly grateful. She sat on the great oak chair with the grey cushions and nursed her aching head, trying her best to listen despite the dull throbbing. He asked Winterfell to confirm White Harbour’s new customs officers, proposed a new currency for the North and White Harbour to mint it, boasted of the city’s new defenses, and finally asked for gold and leave to build Robb a new fleet of warships, enough to take King’s Landing and to deal with Stannis Baratheon, who had just declared himself King from Dragonstone. Elena thanked him for his improvements, and promised to send word to Robb to ask him to consider the proposals, resisting the urge to glance to Ser Rodrik or Maester Luwin for permission each time.

The subject of Lady Hornwood interested Elena more than anything. They had had word of her coming to Winterfell the day before Lord Wyman arrived, she seeking the safety and aid of Winterfell after her husband fell at the Green Fork and her son at the Whispering Wood, as Ser Rodrik pointed out to Elena. The widowed lady was already a source of interest, as her new husband would control all Hornwood lands, and Elena could see the vultures already circling. Lord Wyman seemed genial enough with his suggestion of taking her to wife himself, but Elena could hear the truth behind his words as well as any; it was the land he wanted, not the woman. _Married for a bridge, or for a castle. Is there any man who marries a woman because he wants her?_

Lady Hornwood arrived that night. Elena received her and her dusty, exhausted men-at-arms in the Great Hall.

“I am so very sorry for your loss, my lady,” she said softly. Lady Donella was a handsome woman, her face lined with grief. “Winterfell will remember.”

“That is good to hear, Your Grace. I am very weary. If I might have leave to rest -”

“Of course, you must. We can speak more on the morrow.”

The night brought more dreams that Elena strove to remember once she woke, but found she could not, save more images of blood in snow. She shook her head, as if to loosen them from her mind. Maester Luwin had told her that pregnancy sometimes brought strange, vivid dreams.

The morning audience was taken up with speaking of the harvest and the preservation of grain and meat for the coming winter, a subject Elena felt comfortable letting Maester Luwin take charge of. The talk soon turned to other, more ominous subjects, however, when Lady Donella warned them of Lord Bolton’s bastard son.

“He’s massing men at the Dreadfort. I hoped he meant to take them south to join his father at the Twins, but when I asked he said no Bolton would deign to be questioned by a woman. As if he were trueborn, and had any right to that name.” She scoffed the last.

“Lord Bolton has never acknowledged the boy, as far as I’m aware,” said Ser Rodrik.

“I do not know this man,” Elena admitted, watching Lady Donella. She gave Elena a grim kind of smile.

“Few do. He lived with his mother until two years past – that was when Domeric, Lord Bolton’s heir, died. That was when he brought his bastard to the Dreadfort. The boy is a sly, cruel creature by all accounts. He has a servant he calls Reek, and -” she gave Elena a slightly anxious look. “I hear tales, Your Grace, that I could scarce believe even of a Bolton. And now that my lord husband and sweet son are gone to the gods, the Bastard looks at my lands hungrily.”

A chill went through Elena at that. She wanted to give Lady Donella as many men as there were in Winterfell to defend her rights, but she knew they were needed to protect the castle. Still, her heart went out to the lady. “He may look, my lady, but should he dare to do more I promise you there will be dire retribution,” she said as sternly as she could. “You will be safe enough, rest assured. Though perhaps, when your grief is past, you might find it prudent to wed again? A husband would keep your lands secure for you.”

Lady Donella shook her head and smiled.“I am past my childbearing years, and what beauty I had is long fled, and yet these men come sniffing round me as they never did when I was a maid.”

“You do not look favourably on these suitors?” Elena asked.

Lady Donella gave a bitter laugh, though there was no malice in it. “I forgot, Your Grace, that you are a young bride, and still believe husbands are the cure for everything. I shall wed again if the King your husband commands it, but Mors Crowfood is a drunken brute, and older than my father. As for my noble cousin of Manderly, my bed is not large enough to hold one of his... _majesty_ , and I am surely too small and frail to lie beneath him.”

Elena tried not to laugh. “As you say. I’m sure we can find you a prospect more to your taste.”

When she left, Elena smiled. “What a kind woman, but so sad.”

“Aye,” Ser Rodrik said, “Sad, and gentle, and yet a danger to the peace of your realm nonetheless, Your Grace.”

“Her?”

“Her, Your Grace,” Maester Luwin answered sadly. “With no direct heir, there are sure to be many claimants on her lands. The Tallharts, Flints and Karstarks all have claims through the female line, and the Glovers are fostering Lord Harys’ bastard at Deepwood Motte. The Bolton’s have no claim as such, but the lands adjoin, and Lord Roose is not like to overlook such a chance.”

Elena thought of pale, cold-eyed Roose Bolton overtaking poor, sad Lady Donella’s lands, and felt fury rise in her. “And in such cases, is it not the duty of her liege lord to make her a suitable match?”

“It is, Your Grace.”

“Well, Robb is otherwise occupied, so I suppose that task falls to me?”

“Indeed, Your Grace. Though perhaps it would be wiser to make Lord Harys’ bastard the heir.”

“Lady Donella would not love me for it.”

“No, but it would settle the matter.”

“Perhaps we should look to the Riverlands.” Most unmarried men in the Northern families were old done men. Wedding Lady Donella to one of them risked them dying and leaving her in the very same position she was now. But Elena remembered Lord Blackwood had younger unmarried sons, and the gods knew her own father had sons to spare… She pondered which of her own brothers might be suitable, before remembering that her lord father already had her in Winterfell. _Does Robb_ _really_ _need more Freys controlling northern lands?_

Elena excused herself to sleep once again. Even sitting still exhausted her now. Being pregnant was a damned uncomfortable experience, though she still feared the pain that would come at the end. Sometimes, the child inside her was a comfort more than a burden, though. Every time he kicked or turned inside her, she was reminded that she was not alone.

The next day, her audience was more truculent by far than Lord Wyman or Lady Donella. The Umbers who came before her were not gruff but kind like the Greatjon, but gaunt and grey. Mors Umber wore a chunk of dragonglass in place of the eye a crow had pecked out after taking him for dead. Bran whispered to Elena that he’d taken the crow and bitten its head off, and that’s why they called him Crowfood.

Mors began by immediately asking for Lady Hornwood’s hand. Elena promised to bring the matter before Robb, but internally she remembered Lady Donella’s earlier words, and vowed silently to do anything and everything she could to protect the lady from her ‘suitors’. Hother asked for ships, to combat wildlings sailing out of the Bay of Seals. When Elena suggest he ask Lord Manderly, he scoffed at her.

“That great waddling sack of suet? The man can scarce walk. If you stuck a sword in his belly, ten thousand eels would wriggle out.”

“Nevertheless, you have the wood, and he has the shipwrights,” Elena answered coolly. “You will work with him, or the king will know the reason why.”

To her great astonishment, he grumbled his acquiescence. Elena let out a breath, and risked a glance at Ser Rodrik and Maester Luwin as the Umbers walked away. Ser Rodrik nodded, and Luwin smiled.

The day of the harvest feast dawned bright and clear, but cold. Elena decided that today she would save her strength for the feast tonight and let Ser Rodrik and Maester Luwin take charge. Besides, all the northern lords who were coming had arrived already. Elena bid Beth dress her in a simple gown with long white linen sleeves and a warm, forest green bodice embroidered with golden autumn leaves, and leave her hair to flow over her shoulders. They washed it with something different in Winterfell that made it shine and brought out strands of copper and red in the chocolate in the sunshine. As Elena admired herself in the mirror, she observed that pregnancy rather suited her; her cheeks glowed and her skin seemed less spotted and greasy. She resolved not to let these changes, and the deference with which she was treated in Winterfell, go to her head overmuch.

She slipped down to the kitchens herself instead of sending for breakfast, and found Bran, Rickon and naturally Hodor already there. Rickon threw himself into her arms immediately, and Elena laughed.

“Good morning, little one.”

“G’morning Elly!”

“Good morning Bran, Hodor.”

“Hodor,” Hodor smiled.

Elena spied a new-baked tray of cherry buns and snatched one up, wincing as it burned her fingers. She quickly pulled it apart and ate it, grinning. Bran shook his head at her.

“Cook shouts at us if we steal from the kitchens.”

“Well, he can’t shout at me, can he? I’m the queen.” She picked up another, and offered it to Bran, who was still strapped to Hodor’s back. Bran grinned mischievously and took it, and then Rickon was plucking at her skirts for one, so she gave him one and Hodor too, and they giggled together as they ate them. The day was fresh and clean and Elena felt like a little girl again, and she realised with a start that she was happy.


	6. tell me, atlas, which is heavier; the world, or its people's hearts?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here comes the plot at last

The Great Hall echoed with songs, laughter, shouts and chatter. Beth had picked Elena out a particularly lovely gown for the occasion of the harvest feast; white silk glittering with silver thread, and lined with thick grey fur. The low-cut collar skimmed her shoulders and the long, high-waisted skirt flowed over her pregnant stomach. Her fingers were heavy with opals that shimmered like fire in the candlelight, and a silver wolf’s head with moonstone eyes hung from a delicate chain around her neck. Atop her swept-up brown hair, her crown reflected the flickering flames of the fires burning along the hall. She sat in the high chair of the Starks with her feet dangling, and tried to look the queen. She liked to think she wore the crown a little better now.

Bran and Rickon sat either side of her on the dais, leaning over to giggle at each other as they ate. Elena wished she could giggle with them, but she had keep her eyes up as much as possible, act dignified in front of her bannermen. She exchanged words with Maester Luwin and Ser Rodrik, Lady Hornwood and Cley Cerwin and Wyman Manderly, plans for the coming winter and the state of the defenses of their castles, the words of a queen, not a little girl. Occasionally, when someone said something particularly pompous, she’d glance sideways at Bran and smirk to make him laugh into his wine. She and Maester Luwin kept a strict eye to see that he only had the one cup.

The night wore on, the candles flickered lower and lower, and as the last of the dishes were served, they arrived.

Elena sat up as the doors at the far end of the hall swung open, and a gust of cold air made every flame in the hall dance. She glanced to Ser Rodrik as the new guests arrived, two small, slender figures clad in shades of green.

“The Lady Meera of House Reed,” announced the guard at the door, “With her brother Jojen, of Greywater Watch.”

 _Crannogmen._ In the Riverlands, they told tales of little green men with mossy teeth who fed on frogs and lizards, but these were just two human children, the girl of an age with Elena herself, the boy perhaps a year or two younger. Both had wavy brown hair and forest green eyes. The girl dressed as a boy, in lambskin breeches and a jerkin armoured in bronze scales. At her hips were a net and a long knife; a round shield and a pronged spear were strapped to her back. Her brother wore no weapons at all. He watched Elena with those deep green eyes, and she felt suddenly uncomfortable, as if he was looking past her and inside her, into her soul.

Maester Luwin leaned in to whisper in Elena’s ear, and she listened while keeping her eyes on the crannogmen.

“The children of Howland Reed, Your Grace. Lord Reed was a great friend to your goodfather, Lord Eddard.” _If Lord Eddard trusted the crannogmen, then I shall too. My own father calls them frogmen, but I’d sooner trust Lord Stark’s judge of honour than his._

Both went to their knee in front of Elena’s great stone seat. She sat up and tried to look queenly.

“Your Grace, Queen Elena,” the girl said. “The years have passed in their hundreds and their thousands since my folk first swore fealty to the King in the North. My lord father has sent us here to say the words again, for all our people.”

Inside her, the baby kicked, a little nudge. Elena shifted in her seat, and tried to ignore it. Instead, she nodded at the Reed girl, feeling that would do in lieu of the right words.

“To Winterfell we pledge the faith of Greywater,” the girl and her brother said together. “Hearth and heart and harvest we yield up to you, my queen. Our swords and spears and arrows are yours to command. Grant mercy to our weak, help to our helpless, and justice to all, and we shall never fail you.”

“I swear it by earth and water,” said the boy.

“I swear it by bronze and iron,” said his sister.

“We swear it by ice and fire,” they finished in unison.

The oath was not one Elena recognised, but she dare not look to anyone else for help. Every eye in the hall was on her. She had to say something, quickly.

“May your winters be short, and your summers bountiful,” she replied. “Rise. Osha, make a place for our new guests.”

The boy, Jojen, glanced around curiously as he sat. “Where are the direwolves?”

“In the godswood,” Bran replied. It had been thought best, with all the new people in the castle, and the direwolves still fractious and unsettled around all save Bran, Rickon, and occasionally Elena.

“My brother would like to see them,” said the Lady Meera. Elena looked to Bran and Rickon.

“Well, my princes? They’re your wolves.”

Bran nodded. “I think it would be alright. They won’t bite if we’re there.”

The dancing began soon after. Both Wyman Manderly and Cley Cerwin begged Elena to partner them, but she refused, feeling the baby kick again, stronger this time. Lord Manderly danced with a giggling Beth Cassel instead, and Lord Cerwin with Lady Hornwood. Elena glanced at Bran; they were the only two left in their seats.

“Bored?” she asked. He was slumped in his chair, chin resting on his hand. He glanced up at her apathetically. She gave him an understanding smile. “You’re sad, because they can dance and you can’t. Well, you’re not the only one.” She glanced down at her heavy stomach, proud under the embroidered white silk, and smoothed a hand over it.

“After you’ve had the baby you’ll be able to, though,” Bran replied miserably. “I never will.”

Elena could think of nothing to say to that. He was right, he would never dance again, or run, or fight. Bran fidgeted miserably in his chair, and Elena’s heart went out to him. “Let’s go to bed,” she said softly. Bran was light, but this far along she hadn’t the strength to carry him upstairs, so she called for Hodor and up they climbed, girl, boy and giant together.

That night, Bran wasn’t the only one to have bad dreams.

She was drifting down, down, down, all in silence. The only movement was the gold bubbles, like crystals, floating up past her face. The water was obsidian black, and cool, but Elena did not struggle for breath. She felt at peace; hanging in the cool twilight like she used to when she swam in the Green Fork as a child. Shafts of golden sunlight pierced the surface. The weight of her pregnant stomach was not so heavy under the water. But when she looked down, into the depths, fear gripped her heart. Something was moving, deep beneath her, some monster reaching out for her, and suddenly cold black water filled her lungs and the shafts of sunlight were all gone. Frozen with fear, gasping for breath, Elena only woke when the first tentacle wrapped around her ankle, black on the corpse-white skin of her leg.

She blinked imaginary water from her eyes and saw Bran, also awake, also drenched in cold sweat. Again, Rickon slept on oblivious, curled like a pup under the furs. Bran touched Elena’s shoulder.

“Are you alright?”

“I – yes. It was a bad dream. That’s all.”

Bran nodded. “Yes. We both had a bad dream.” _Gods, we’re both lying to ourselves, aren’t we?_

“What did you dream?” she asked him.

“I think we can trust the Reeds,” Bran said, looking away from her. “Summer and Shaggydog like them.” Somehow, Elena knew that despite appearances, that was the answer to the question she’d asked.

Their guests left Winterfell that morning in the grey light of dawn, the hooves of their mounts cracking the frost on the ground and steaming their air with their breath. Elena, Bran and Rickon saw them off together. When it was seemly, they slipped away to the godswood, to the cool calm under the trees. The cobwebs all shimmered with frost, the grass pale and crisp beneath their feet. It was fast becoming Elena’s favourite place in the castle, more so even than the glass gardens filled with flowers or the kitchen, warm and full of good smells. Here in the godswood, she felt safest of all. Nothing could touch them here.

When they reached the heart tree, they found they were not alone. The Reeds waited for them beneath the trees. Summer and Shaggydog approached first, sniffing, wary and low to the ground. Meera Reed crouched a little and removed her glove, extending her hand to Summer, who sniffed it and then gave it a cursory lick. Jojen watched with his green eyes, but neither wolf approached him at all. When the Reeds saw Elena, they went to their knee as one.

“It’s alright,” she said, faintly embarrassed. “Rise.”

Rickon called Shaggy to him, and the great black wolf bounded up, nearly knocking the four-year-old flying. Summer trotted over to Bran on Hodor’s back, and then moved to Elena. Both wolves were ever gentle with Elena as they were unrestrained with their young masters; as if they understood that she carried precious cargo. Elena could have sworn sometimes, when she looked into their eyes, that she was looking into the eyes of humans.

“Do you wish to be alone to pray, Your Grace?” Meera asked respectfully. “We can leave, if you want.”

“No, stay,” Elena said quickly.

“We’re here to play,” Rickon supplied. Jojen smiled.

“Play what, my prince?”

Within a few minutes, the godswood was filled with laughter and shrieks of delight. Meera danced this way and that, with Shaggydog and Summer close behind, snapping playfully at her heels. Rickon giggled and ran after them as Hodor laid Bran down beside the black pool. Elena spread her cloak out carefully beneath them both. Jojen lingered near them, a hand on the heart tree. Today, its red leaves were all edged with frost, like lace edging on a red dress.

“Are you well, Your Grace?” the Reed boy asked. Elena glanced him up and down a little.

“Perfectly, thank you.”

“And you, my prince?” Bran’s eyes were far away, fixed once more on the darkness of the pool.

“Bran?” Elena prompted gently. “You were asked a question.”

“I’m fine,” Bran replied shortly.

“Tell me about your dreams,” Jojen said boldly. Elena stared at him wordlessly, but Bran did not move.

“I don’t dream,” he said stubbornly.

“Everyone dreams.”

“Well I _don’t,”_ Bran glared at his own reflection in the water.

Elena watched Jojen warily. This solemn young boy sent a chill through her bones; the way he spoke, the way he looked at Bran, at her, as if he could see right through the both of them. “What do _you_ dream?” she blurted out impulsively. Jojen turned his sad green eyes on her again.

“I dream many things, Your Grace.”

“My brother has the greensight,” Meera said breathlessly, disentangling herself from Rickon and Shaggydog. “Sometimes he dreams things before they happen.”

“There is no _sometimes,_ sister,” Jojen said, gently reproachful.

Bran looked up from the pool to stare, wide-eyed, at Jojen. “Tell me what’s going to happen.”

“Tell me about your dreams,” Jojen countered.

“I don’t _have_ dreams. Maester Luwin gives me sleeping draughts.”

“You had a dream last night,” Elena said softly, stroking his auburn hair a little. “You told me.”

“I don’t want to _talk_ about it,” Bran said, and when he looked up at Elena, his eyes were full of accusation and tears. “ _You_ promised we wouldn’t talk about it.” Elena had promised no such thing, but she understood what Bran meant. He had trusted her, and she had told the Reeds the truth. “Go away,” Bran mumbled, turning away from her.

“Bran, I’m sorry -”

“ _Leave!_ All of you!” Summer growled and advanced on Jojen and Elena, slow and deliberate. His golden eyes burned at Elena, and for the first time since she had first met Grey Wind, the wolves scared her. Meera seemed alarmed.

“Your Grace, Jojen, perhaps we should go.”

“This is not the day I die,” Jojen said calmly.

“Still, I’d rather not see you savaged, nor the Queen. Please!” Elena took Jojen’s hand on instinct and pulled him away from the heart tree and behind Meera. They backed out of the godswood together, Summer growling at them all the way, and left Rickon and Hodor and Bran alone with the wolves.

They walked back through the castle together. When they reached the yard, the Reeds made for their rooms, but Elena shook her head.

“Jojen, would you walk with me?”

Meera glanced at her brother, who nodded. She bowed her head to Elena, and strode away from them across the yard, though she glanced behind her at the two of them.

“How may I help you, Your Grace?”

“You would not tell Bran what you dreamt, but I would have the truth from you.” They crossed the yard together and entered the main keep.

“...You would not like what I tell you, I fear.”

“Nevertheless, I will hear it.” They mounted the stair to Elena’s chamber.

Jojen sighed heavily. “I dreamt the sea came to Winterfell.” Elena’s heart went cold. “I saw black waves, lapping at the walls, crashing against the towers, flooding over the gate and filling the castle. Drowned men were floating in the yard. I didn’t know their names when I first dreamed it, but now I do. Your septon, Chayle, and your smith, Mikken.”

“You saw them dead?” Elena felt cold all over. Unbidden, her hand went to her swollen belly.

“I’m sorry, Your Grace. I said you would not like it.” He bowed, and left her alone at the top of the stair, shivering.

The morning brought grim news. Elena received Maester Luwin and Ser Rodrik in her chambers. The grey dawn light filled the room with faded shadows.

“Your Grace, I regret to say that Lady Hornwood was taken on the road home from the feast last night.”

“ _Taken_? By _whom_?”

“The Bastard of Bolton, Your Grace. Apparently, he took her back to the Dreadfort and there had her make marriage vows in front of the heart tree, and witnesses.” Elena felt bile rise in the back of her throat. _I swore I would protect her. I said she would be safe._ “Lord Manderly’s men march on her castle, he says to protect it, but his intent is plain to see.” Rage, bitter and hot, rose in her. She slammed the flat of her palm against the wall and left it there, stinging. Her eyes stung too, with tears which she willed away. She could weep later.

“Damn them! _Damn_ them, the Bastard and Manderly both!”

“This is not your fault, Your Grace,” Maester Luwin said gently from behind her.

“Oh, but it is, Maester,” Elena replied bitterly. _Robb left me in charge. He sent me North to represent him, I’m his queen._ _How can he defeat the Lannisters if his own kingdom is in disarray?_ “I am the Queen. I rule the North in King Robb’s stead. Everything that happens here is my fault.”

“We will bring the Bastard to the King’s justice, Your Grace,” Ser Rodrik said grimly. “Never fear on that count.” He rode out that very morning with four hundred men. Elena watched from the ramparts, wrapped in furs, but still shivering. The day was cold and damp, mist swirling over the ground and running cold white fingers through the trees. Her hair was damp too, sparkling with water droplets, a crown of shimmering pearls.

When she wrote to Robb, it was with a heavy heart. She told him of Lady Hornwood, and then stopped, ink blotting the paper. She thought of him, the first night on the march out of the Twins, sobbing with his head in his hands. How young he’d looked, asleep in her arms. She ripped the paper up, still-drying ink and all, and tossed the scraps on the fire. She started a new letter, with no mention of Lady Hornwood.

When she found Maester Luwin in his chambers to ask him to send the letter, he had news for her instead.

“I have had a message from His Grace, my queen.”

“From Robb? Is aught amiss?”

“No...and yes, Your Grace. There has been a great Northern victory at Oxcross. The king has taken several castles, among them Ashemark, the former stronghold of House Marbrand, where he writes from.”

“That is good news...but you said something was amiss.”

“I’m afraid that during the battle, your brother Ser Stevron was slain.” _Stevron. That will set them all against each other._ Her siblings concerned themselves mostly with whether they came in the line of succession, and grew more and more fractious the longer her father lived; Stevron had waited all his life to be Lord of the Crossing, and now he never would be. But all the others would be calculating how far they’d moved up the line. _Seven hells, what’s wrong with me? I should be upset. I’m as bad as they are._ But try as she might, she could conjure no tears for her eldest brother. _My blood has frozen in my veins._

"We have also had word from Ser Rodrik." Elena sighed. Whatever the news was, it could be nothing good. Maester Luwin looked saddened, and guilty.

"Tell me," Elena said at last.  _Get it over with._

"He writes from Hornwood. I'm afraid he came too late to spare Lady Hornwood." Elena was falling again. She moved to the window, desperate to feel the cool air on her face, and steadied herself on the windowsill, head spinning. 

"What did the Bastard do to her?"

"Your Grace, I don't think -"

"Tell me. You know the rumours will be all around the castle soon enough, you cannot spare me."

"Ser Rodrik says - he says that Bolton's bastard must have starved her. By the time they found her -" Luwin hesitated again, but Elena looked at him. 

"Say it."

"She had been forced to eat her own fingers." Elena's stomach heaved. The room span. She gripped the stone windowsill tight, knuckles turning white. "I'm so sorry, Your Grace," Luwin murmured behind her.

"Is Ser Rodrik returning?" Elena forced herself to say. She wanted the old, gruff, kind knight back in Winterfell. She wanted to feel safe again.  _Might as well wish for Prince Aemon the Dragonknight to defend you with his own sword, or a dragon to come flying over the walls to save you._

"The Bastard escaped justice, Your Grace. Ser Rodrik is pursuing him back to the Dreadfort."

 _Good,_ Elena thought savagely.  _Feed him to his own bloody hounds. I hate him._

 She slept in her own bed that night. Bran’s anger could be felt across the castle. She tried to sleep as best she could, but the baby would not settle, kicking and moving within her. She hugged herself, arms wrapped protectively around her stomach. When she slept, she had nightmares. First of Robb, of the blue ribbon she gave him at the Whispering Wood stained with blood. Next, of poor Lady Hornwood, skeletal and weeping red tears, with bloody stubs where her fingers were. Elena woke, shaking, crying. The bed was big, and empty, and cold. _Come home, Robb. Come_ home. _I need you, I can’t do this on my own._ _I’m not clever enough, I’m not brave enough. I’m not enough._  

Sleep came again. This time, the dream was again vivid, and horrifying. She dreamed of Grey Wind, lying in the snow, bleeding from a hundred wounds. Elena held out a hand, to comfort or help him, but he turned his head to her and spoke with Robb’s voice.

_It was for your sake. All for your sake._

Elena reeled back, bile in her throat. _What was? What was?_

 _Wake up,_ the wolf replied. _Wake up, my lady._

“My lady, wake up.”

She woke, to the cold, sharp tip of a steel blade pressed to her stomach.


	7. and though she be but little, she is fierce

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> theon, you tactless darn

The girl in the bed blinked at him. Her dark eyes were red-rimmed and blood-shot from crying. Her brown curls fell in a tousled mess around bare white shoulders, her shift fallen from them. She cringed away from the sword Theon had pointed at her swollen belly, sitting up and drawing the furs around her shoulders.

“Greyjoy? What -”

“I’ve taken the castle, my lady.”

“What are you talking about?” She narrowed those dark eyes at him. Realisation was beginning to dawn in them. “You’re Robb’s friend. His _brother_. You wouldn’t -”

“Betray him?”

She gaped up at him. “He trusts you,” she said, half-whispering. Her eyes shone with unshed tears.

“More fool him,” Theon said stiffly. Did the girl really think to _love_ Robb? He’d had the impression they barely knew each other. “Get up, my lady. It’s time to yield.”

“Never,” she spat at him. Her eyes burned with hate. Theon was taken aback by her fierceness; he had expected tears and pleas for mercy, not defiance.

“ _Yield,”_ he snarled, “Or I’ll cut Robb’s pup out of you and send it to him.” He pressed the tip of the sword to her stomach, just enough to make her gasp and raise a dot of blood through the virgin white fabric. “The castle is mine. Yield, and I won’t put its people to the sword. It’s what a queen should do.”

Her face twisted with anger. “You’ll burn in the seventh hell for this, turncloak.” Her cheeks and lips were red with rage.

Theon turned away from her. “Bring her maid in,” he told the men with him. Little Beth Cassel was crying as well, though unharmed. She began to sob louder, hysterical with fear, when the throwing axe was pressed to her throat. Theon turned back to Elena.

“She can dress you to go down and yield this castle like a lady – or she can die. The choice is yours.”

She looked at him with such...confusion. That was what he remembered, would remember for years to come. She was honestly lost for words at his cruelty. She could not conceive such callousness, against his own people, his own brothers. It saddened her, more than frightened her. Finally, she nodded once.

“Beth, bring me my dressing gown.” The Cassel girl scurried off to fetch it and came back, wrapped Robb’s little wife in her gown, all the while watching the ironborn with wide, wet eyes. Her mistress wrapped an arm around her.

“There now,” she murmured softly. “Don’t cry, sweetling. All will be well.” She glared at Theon and his men. “Well? If you want me to dress, you’ll have to leave. Go on, get out.”

Theon smirked. “Alright. We’ll wait outside.” What could she do, jump out of the window? She’d break herself and lose the child in the fall, and there was nowhere to run.

When they left, Elena pressed Beth into her arms. The younger girl sobbed while Elena stroked her auburn curls. Her mind was racing. “It’s all right, child. Your father will soon have word of this. He will bring every man left in the North to free us.” _Greyjoy can have no more men than Ser Rodrik will bring. He will die, as surely as the sun rises in the East._ “Come, help me dress. We won’t let the turncloak cow us.” _I must do everything I can to spare the people of this castle from harm._

Beth dressed her warmly and simply, in a fitted gown of grey wool lined with fur, and a warm fur lined cloak to keep off the drizzling cold rain that was falling on the yard below. All the world was wet and grey and cold. She brushed her hair but left it loose. Elena considered the crown for a moment, and then decided she didn’t wish to anger the invaders any further. _Besides, how can I be a queen with no kingdom?_

When she left the room, Greyjoy looked her up and down with such arrogance it boiled her blood. She clenched her fists, nails biting into the thick lining of her gloves, and pushed down the urge to smack him. _If you anger him, your people will pay the price._

The people of Winterfell huddled in the yard, leaning against each other, shivering with cold and fear. Bran, Rickon and the Reed children were grouped close together, watched over by Maester Luwin and Osha, for which Elena was grateful. Rickon cried out for her as soon as he saw her, moving to run into her arms, but she stopped him with a wobbly smile and a shake of her head.

Greyjoy allowed her to walk to her people alone, head held high. The tiny water droplets frosted her dark hair, and she resisted the urge to cross her arms and huddle into her cloak as she stood in the mud-streaked, melting snow and puddles of water black with mud, which filled the yard. _The sea has come to Winterfell._

She glanced back at him, dark eyes hard and black as jet.

“Go on,” he urged her. She turned back to the crowd assembled, feeling sick to her stomach.

“I’ve yielded Winterfell to Theon,” she said, her mouth dry and the words sticking in her throat.

“Louder,” Theon commanded. “And say Prince Theon.” The look the girl cut him at that could have killed a man.

Elena gritted her teeth and tore her eyes away from Greyjoy’s smirking face. “I’ve yielded Winterfell to _Prince_ Theon,” she said, barely louder, trying not to catch the eye of any of her sullen, frightened people. The shame burned her cheeks and pricked tears in her eyes, but she willed them away angrily.

Greyjoy’s next words faded in her ears to nothing but sounds. The soft rain fell on her bare face, moisture clinging to her lashes and running down her cheeks like tears, unheeded. Rickon clung to her side, sobbing quietly, but she neither heard nor felt him. What a sad picture they must have made – the pregnant girl and sobbing child, standing sullen in the falling rain and dripping mud. In her mind’s eye, she saw Robb as she had last seen him, standing on the little wooden dock in Riverrun, the sunlight flashing in his hair. _I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry…_

Her door was locked, and guarded. They had moved her from the lord’s bedchamber to the top room of a higher tower with a steeper, narrower stair. Bran and Rickon were kept separate from her, though they at least allowed her Beth to brush her hair and undress her with trembling little hands. Elena turned, caught them in her own, and held them still.

“Don’t be afraid. I will _never_ let them lay a finger on you. Until your father returns, we must both be strong, we must not let them see us afraid. We’re women of the North, Beth. Let us show them how strong the women of Winterfell can be.”

The rap of the handle of an axe on the door startled them both into jumping. Elena pulled the furs from her bed and wrapped them around her shoulders over her shift as the door opened. One of Greyjoy’s Ironborn, a squat man with a mangled, scarred jaw, smirked when he saw the two girls standing there.

“The prince wishes you to dine with him.” The way he looked her up and down made Elena’s skin crawl, and she pulled the furs tighter around her shoulders.

“Allow me a moment to dress –” She started to say stiffly, but he grinned cruelly and laughed, shaking his head.

“No. The prince wants you there now…and as you are.” Elena bit her lip as tears swum in her eyes, her heart beating in her throat, constricting her breath. This was too much. She remembered Greyjoy at her bedding, his hands on her waist, his cold grey eyes on her, and felt bile rise in the back of her throat. Her hand went unbidden to her swollen belly. Surely it would protect her? _Don’t be so naïve,_ said the cold voice somewhere in the back of her mind. _It hasn’t protected countless women before you. Denying him will not avail you, so what will you do? What can you do?_

Beth was shaking again by Elena’s side. She squeezed her shoulder lightly as the girl looked up at her with big, wet eyes. “As you wish,” she said to the Ironborn, her own voice sounding curiously faint and far away. Her hand fell from Beth’s shoulder as she brushed past the man with a barely-disguised shiver and out of her chamber door.

She passed Osha where she stood guard outside the chamber. The wilding woman looked at her with sad, vaguely guilty eyes, but Elena looked away, head held high.

Theon waited for her in great, airy bedchamber that had belonged to Eddard Stark when last he was here. He twisted the handle of the knife in his hand, boring a hole deeper and deeper into the honey-coloured wood of the table. The blade flashed in the firelight, over and over and over. A part of him didn’t know what he was doing, asking for her now. A part of him looked at himself, sitting at the table, endlessly twisting the knife, and was disgusted. He didn’t have to do this part. And yet, another part of him wanted to, just a little.

He had wanted her since her bedding, all those moons ago, at the Twins. When they first saw her, Theon had laughed and made some stupid joke about her face, with its scars and spots, and Robb had cursed him, red-faced. When Theon watched her at the wedding feast, though, laughing in the candlelight as Robb whispered in her ear, he felt the familiar twinge of envy. And later, at the bedding, when he held her trembling in his arms in only her shift, he saw past her skin to her long, shiny dark hair, her big dark eyes with their long soft lashes, her full lips. Her body was lush and soft, pressed against him as he held her tight, and he had found himself stiffening for her. Later, listening at the door with the others as Robb took her, he had tried to laugh and make his jokes, but in the end he had gone off, burning with anger and something else entirely. On the march he had tried to ignore her, but he found his eyes drawn to her all the same, and when she talked to him he found himself full of venom, hatred that he could not explain.

He looked up when she entered. Robb’s little queen. He had been expecting a frightened child, not a woman. Perhaps before his attraction had only been because she was forbidden fruit, Robb's wife, but now in the flickering candlelight, flushed with anger, eyes bright with fear, Theon had to admit there was something even more alluring about her. When he saw her in the yard his eyes were drawn to her ripe body, her swollen stomach vulnerable under the folds of her cloak. She knew it, too, and she despised him for it. He could see it in her eyes.

_I won't actually do it,_ he decided.  _I'll just scare her a little, is all. Show her I'm in control. Let the others think I did take her, like a true Ironborn._

“My lady. Thank you for joining me.”

“As if I had a choice,” Elena spat back. Her heartbeat was thundering in her ears like the Green Fork after heavy rainfall. She could feel the heat radiating from her own cheeks. All her tears had been cried, though; her eyes were as dry as bone. His smirk made her want to scream; seeing him even standing here, in the heart of this castle she now called home, invading the one place she had felt safe and in control, made her want to kill him. She pictured the red smile widening on his neck, the bright blood splashing down his shirt. The knife lay abandoned next to the plate of bread and cheese, winking at her in the firelight.

“Please, sit.” He sat down before she could, lounging with one leg resting on his thigh, bouncing restlessly. She perched on the edge of the seat across the table, all too aware of the thin fabric of her shift. A breeze was blowing from somewhere, guttering the candles and raising goose-bumps all over her body.

“Why am I here?” Elena demanded. She knew perfectly well, but she wanted to make him say it. Her eyes bored into his – she would not let him look away, nor escape from what he was about to do.

“To eat with me. You are still a noble lady, even if you are not a queen, and I wish to treat you with the respect you deserve.” His grey eyes were still laughing at her as he picked up the knife. Elena stiffened a little, but he only used it to take a slice of apple and hold it out to her. She took it gingerly, feeling the cool steel under her fingertips for a second. The juice was sweet in her mouth, enough to almost make her gag. “Eat all you want,” Greyjoy smiled mockingly. “You must be hungry.”

“No, thank you.”

“I insist.” He took a flagon of wine and poured the rich, red draught into two goblets. Unseen, Elena gathered the discarded knife in the folds of the tablecloth and slipped it into her lap, under her furs. Greyjoy pushed a goblet towards her lazily. “Drink.”

She sipped a little, letting it fall from her lips back into the goblet as Greyjoy took a long gulp, watching her all the while. He chuckled and wiped his mouth with the back of hand, setting his goblet down again. “I haven’t _poisoned_ it, you know.” Elena glared, but he wouldn’t look away, so she took another small sip, feeling the bitter Dornish red burn as it went down her throat and ignited a fire in her belly. The baby kicked a little, and her delicate stomach roiled. She placed a hand on the bump to steady herself, and the corner of Greyjoy’s mouth twitched.

“Robb must be so proud of you. Not yet wed a year and already carrying an heir. Most men can only pray for a wife like you.”

“How can you even stand to speak his name?” Elena said softly. His smile faltered; only for a second, but it did.

“Do you love him?” Greyjoy asked her. Elena studied his face carefully, but found no answers to her questions. _What a thing to ask. Do I?_

“Better than you,” she finally answered. Greyjoy stared coldly at her for a moment, and then laughed, though there was no humour in it.

“Alright. Never mind. I didn’t care, either way. You’re touchingly loyal, though, to a man you knew only a few months.”

“Whereas you knew him for a lifetime and yet betrayed him like it was nothing.” Elena felt adrenaline surging through her, urging her to bait him, though she knew one false move might see her dead.

“Betrayal? Is it betrayal, to leave the camp of your captor and enemy and fight for your true family? If I kept you for another ten years, I would not call it betrayal if you ran back to Robb at the first chance, however gently I treated you.” He was trying to speak calmly, but the flush in his cheeks gave him away. His chest rose and fell as if he had been running hard.

“What will you do with me, my lord?” Elena asked softly, carefully. “If you harm me or my child, Robb will stop at nothing to destroy you.”

“You are my hostage, as I was once the Starks,” Greyjoy replied petulantly. “As long as I control you, I control the North.” He was leaning over the table now, subconsciously moving closer to her. Elena resisted the urge to leap up from the table and run as fast as she could.

“You do not control me,” she said, barely above a whisper, trying to keep her voice from trembling. “You will never control me.”

“I _do_ control you,” he replied, standing, losing his temper. Elena stood too, furs falling to the ground, unable to keep from shaking, sensing now that she was losing control of the situation as much as he was. She hid the knife behind her back, gripping the handle, slippery with sweat. “I can do anything I please to you, you arrogant girl! Do you understand that? I am Ironborn, and I take what I want.”

He was stood over her now. She could run, the door was just behind her, but there would be no escape, his men were just outside the door. Fear froze the blood in her veins and rooted her to the spot. Before she could think, his body was pressed hard against her, his hands tangled in her hair and gripping her face hard, his lips crushing hot and undeniable against hers.

Elena’s mouth opened, unbidden, in surprise. Greyjoy held her tight, crushing his body against hers as he kissed her. His tongue invaded her mouth, hot and wet, nearly choking her. For a moment her body was limp, eyes closed, and she allowed it all to happen, too shocked even to struggle. Then, her wits came back to her.

Theon could feel his heartbeat everywhere, heavy and fast. Her mouth was wonderful; soft and trembling, open to him. He could feel her shaking, her swollen belly pressed against his body – and then, the sharp prick of a blade, held high on his inner thigh. He released her and moved back a little, shocked, and then she had the knife at his throat, glittering and deadly.

“Do not touch me,” she said, voice low and steady. “Call for help, and I’ll slit your throat where you stand. Just let me go back to my chamber. We’ll pretend none of this ever happened.” Her skin was flushed, and her eyes were deep and dark as the sea before a storm. When Theon swallowed, the knife pressed into his skin, and tiny droplets of blood welled up along the blade.

He lifted his hands in surrender and nodded, once. She removed the knife from his neck, but did not lower it, holding it out in front of her pregnant stomach. She reached down without taking her eyes off Theon, picked up her furs, and wrapped them around her once again. Then she left, feeling her way to the door with one hand, never once letting Theon out of her sight.

Elena’s heart raced so as she thought it might simply stop. She slipped out of the door and let it shut on Greyjoy’s stunned face, turning and then stopping with a shriek as hands went around her shoulders. Osha hushed her quickly.

“Quiet now, little queen. It’s only me.”

“Another turncloak,” Elena spat, nerves ragged.

“Not so. What good would it have done me, or you for that matter, if I’d died fighting off his men? I’m more use to you now. Did he hurt you?” Her eyes looked Elena over urgently for signs of injury, but she shook her head.

“No.”

Osha’s eyes alighted on the knife still clutched in Elena’s clammy fingers. “You threaten to cut off his balls with that, or what?”

Elena smirked. “Not quite.”

“Brave girl. Come, we haven’t much time. The little princes are all the way across the castle.”

Elena frowned, confused. “What? What’s going on?”

“We’re not staying here, little queen. Not with him. Time we got you and those boys safe.” Osha nodded at Elena’s belly. “And that little one, too. I heard him threaten to cut it out of you, but that won’t happen. Not while I’m alive.”

They crossed the yard in silence. The air was still, the rain stopped, and the stars glittered coldly above them in a velvet sky. Elena held Rickon’s hand tight in hers. _Quiet now, little one,_ she had whispered in breathless urgency. _We have to be so, so quiet now._

Down in the crypt, the air was stale and dead. The sightless eyes of the Stark kings, Robb’s ancestors, looked down on her from all angles. Elena remembered Robb telling her that the swords in their laps were iron, to trap their angry souls and protect the living from their wrath. She looked at the rusted gaps where the most ancient had broken down into nothing, and shivered.

Bran and Rickon huddled in her arms. Above them, the alarm was sounding, no doubt, horns blowing as Greyjoy and his men raced to find them. But if Osha was right – and Elena thought she was – they would never find them. Not here, where superstition forbade them to tread. Where they would never think to look. They were safe, for now, then, but not forever. Elena could not stop thinking about her lessons with Maester Luwin; of Helaena Targaryen, maddened by the death of her son, impaling herself on the spikes of the Red Keep; of Princess Rhaena, forced to send her children away and wed her cruel uncle Maegor; of Rhaella Targaryen, fleeing under cover of night with her only living son, only to die in childbed on Dragonstone. Of Elia Martell and the ruined skull of her baby boy.

Wrapped in furs, the three of them curled together. The steady breathing of the two boys was like a lullaby, slowing Elena’s heartbeat. In the darkness, the eyes of the wolves glowed, and finally Elena’s eyelids began to droop, watched over as she was by eyes she knew would never sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so long, it's tough to find time to write at uni so who knows when i can update this again


	8. see amid the winter's snow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *obligatory apology for taking so long to update*
> 
> i saw theon in the new episode looking so fucking good and snapped, i guess

Elena feared she might go mad.

The crypts were utter darkness. They dare not risk a candle, not for long, nor a fire. They huddled together under furs for warmth. For days, perhaps, weeks maybe, they waited, making not a sound, unable to speak, unable to see. The fear of discovery haunted Elena’s every waking minute. Even the slightest sound brought her fear to a fever-pitch. The pressure of the darkness, the silence, the terror, weighed down on her like a physical presence, seeming to crush the breath from her, to crush her very soul beneath it. She had no way of knowing how long they had been down there, but she knew she could not stand it for much longer.

Her only comfort was the continued kick of her child inside her, and even that was a torture of sorts. Every time he turned, Elena was forced to bite back a scream, fearful the sound would carry to the surface; and every night she dreamed of a wailing prince with dark hair and violet eyes, a man with blood all over his mailed hands, and the crying of a babe abruptly cut off. What would become of her own little boy? How could she bring him into this world now? And yet, every nudge from inside her reminded her of life. Life, even in the midst of death.

She had Rickon in her arms and Bran somewhere to the left of her, his hair tickling her cheek as he leant against her, soft as a mother’s kiss. She could feel them both breathing, soft and even, and the baby moving every so often, a little kick, and these sensations comforted her and sent her to sleep. Elena had no way of knowing if it was night or day, but down in the darkness there was precious little to do _but_ sleep, and she was warm wrapped in her furs with the boys in her arms, so warm she could almost believe she was content and all was well and she was sleeping in her own bed. Her eyelids grew heavier and heavier, until at last she closed her eyes and found she could not open them again.

The next thing she was aware of was Bran’s hand at her shoulder, shaking her awake. Elena stirred, blinked sleep from her eyes, and tried to turn to Bran without disturbing Rickon, who slept on, head pillowed on her chest.

“What is it, sweet?”

Elena couldn’t see Bran in the dark, but by the shake in his voice and his trembling body pressed against hers, she could imagine his terrified expression well enough.

“Elena, I dreamt…”

“What? What did you dream?”

“I dreamt I saw Winterfell burn.”

That had been so long ago, it seemed, but logically Elena knew it had only been a few weeks since they’d emerged blinking from Winterfell’s crypt, to find nothing but ash, dead bodies and shattered stones in the snow. Rain dripped and drabbed, turning the ashes to thick black mud, as Elena wandered, hand in hand with Rickon, among the ruins. Hodor, Bran and Osha followed behind. What a sight they must have made - pregnant girl, little boy, cripple, half-wit and wildling, wandering the ruins like ghosts, soaked to their skin. Hot water smoked where the underground springs had been exposed. The glass gardens were shattered, winter roses and petals from other flowers crushed into the ground, or fluttering like snowflakes over the corpses.

And of course, there were the burned bodies. They still hung at the gate – two children, and a woman. Her baby, also burned and tarred, was spiked atop the gate.

 _Theon did that. He must have._ A woman and her babe, strangers to Elena, innocent smallfolk brutally murdered, burned and disfigured, in place of Elena and her own child. Now all the North thought her, Bran and Rickon dead, and Robb’s heir cut out of her and likewise slain. A thousand regrets cut Elena like a knife when she thought of it. Those four innocents, dead. Robb, grieving for his little brothers and his first child, having no way of knowing they were still alive. Lady Catelyn, separated from her daughters, now to hear that her boys were lost to her as well. _And do they weep for me as well, I wonder? Do my sisters in the Twins tear their clothes and wail? Does my father?_ She laughed bitterly to herself. _Perhaps he does for his grandson, the future Lord of Winterfell, and the power he would have brought him._

But Theon could not have been the sole architect of Winterfell’s destruction, they soon learned. There were too many Ironborn dead. They found a banner displaying the flayed man of Bolton in the mud, their suspicions confirmed by Maester Luwin when they found – _No. Don’t think of Luwin._ Tears pricked her eyes.

All this passed through her mind and back again as they made their way from Winterfell – but to where, they could not decide. Elena was too great with child to travel too far for too long, and Rickon too little. It was agreed that Rickon should go with Osha, but Elena would not leave Bran, not for anything. His dreams made her afraid, and his need to go beyond the Wall made her afraid _for_ him, but she would remain by his side. As they journeyed into the mountains, however, that promise became harder and harder to keep.

It was a bitter cold night, the coldest Elena could ever remember. The air in the mountains was always thin and cold, but that night it was a sharp knife, cutting through her skin, her bones, into the very deepest parts of her. The snow numbed her cheeks, her lips, frosted her eyelashes and brows. It hurt to breathe. She huddled in her furs, one hand on her belly as if she could support herself and the child, and knew she could go no further in this weather. The Reeds knew it too, she could tell. They kept stealing anxious glances at her, and Meera leaned in to whisper to Jojen too often.

Finally, the inevitable came. Elena felt the liquid gush down her legs, the warmest thing she'd felt in weeks. The pains had been ripping through her for hours, but now they came ever quicker, and when they saw the entrance to the cave Elena wept all the harder for relief.

“We’ll rest here for the night, my queen,” Meera said, her own relief palpable in her voice.

Bran nodded. “Do you hear that, Elena? We can rest. You’ll be warmer here. The baby will be safe.” His voice wobbled. He was scared for her too, as scared as she was for herself, for her child. She was too exhausted to even acknowledge that either of them had spoken, merely sitting down as gently as she could despite her shaking legs and the ache in her belly.

She lay down, stifling a groan, as Meera set about starting a fire. Hodor laid Bran down gently beside her, stooping to enter the low cave. She could feel the babe moving within her, and he had been kicking all the way from Winterfell, a sign of reassurance. He was still strong, still full of life. _Like Robb. He’ll be as fierce and strong as his father, and he’ll give me strength too, gods willing._ Another sting of pain went through her, as she remembered Winterfell’s godswood, and Maester Luwin’s dying words. He had wept to see her and Bran and Rickon alive, lying beneath the heart tree. Blood everywhere. Too much blood. _You must be safe. Above all, you must live._ His weakened, blood-stained hand reaching to brush her stomach. _There must always be a Stark in Winterfell…he must come home…our last hope…_

Meera was trying to get a fire on the little sticks of damp wood they had gathered the day before. "We must have fire, and hot water. I've never seen a child delivered -"

"I have," Elena said, with difficulty. "I can do it. I can bring him into the world by myself."  _I don't believe I'll live to see him cry, though._ If she could birth him alive, at least, she would die happy. After that, it would be up to Meera and Jojen and Bran and Hodor to keep him alive. How, she could not think. 

She was so tired, though. So, so tired. She could hear Bran talking, dimly, as if through water. Meera answered him, and then Jojen. They sounded frightened. Someone said her name, but she could not answer. The pain was so awful, flames licking up her back, between her thighs, deep in her belly. When it reached its zenith, she pushed, knowing no other way, screaming, but nothing seemed to move and when her scream died she sobbed with despair.

It seemed to go like that for hours. Pain, always, peaking in a burning scourge, and Elena trying, trying to get him to come, but there was nothing but pain. Blood stained the furs and blankets they had laid beneath her. Though her own haze of tears and pain, she thought she saw Bran crying. The snow still fell outside, and Elena concentrated on that, on the constant swirling of white and grey that mesmerized the eyes. She thought she saw figures, coming towards them, but that could not be, they were so far from any castle or village. No person could survive up here. Elena squinted, trying to force her pain-addled mind to work. Were the figures getting bigger? 

They seemed to melt out of the snow. They numbered five or six, men and women, dressed warmly in thick furs and leather armour, the men and the women alike. There were sigils, stamped into their leather breastplates or worn as brooches to secure their cloaks; pinecones, buckets, a sentinel tree. Elena remembered her lessons with Bran and Maester Luwin what felt like a thousand years ago; the men of the mountains, sworn to House Stark, the Flints, the Knotts, the Liddles. Robb’s great-grandmother had been a Flint of the mountains, he had told Elena one night as they lay side by side. Fear slipped away from her, and she knew all at once she was saved.

"My queen," said the man in front as he knelt to them, snow melting in his fierce black beard. "My prince. The Flints offer you our service."

The others echoed him. "The Knotts offer our service."

"The Norreys offer our service." They were all kneeling now.

“Can you help her? Can you get her somewhere safe?” Bran’s high, childish little voice, anxious and still thick with tears but no longer afraid. Elena struggled to sit up.

“Aye. We can. Take her overland, then down the White Knife to White Harbour. Those mermen may be fat, but they don’t lack for wits. She’ll be safe there.”

"But first, that child wants to be out," said a woman with an acorn sewn to her cloak, kneeling by Elena. "Come, Flint, strike up a fire and get some of that water heating. Bring in the furs, and my medicine pack. Quick about it!" 

She took out a thick leather belt, which she shoved between Elena's teeth, and she bit down. It hurt so much. Her nails dug into the furs below her, and someone put their hand into hers, so she dug down on that too, and bit down, hard, the screams forcing their way between her teeth like the baby forcing his way out.

She pushed when she was told to push, at first, but close to the end she lost of sense of time and rhythm, pain blurring the world around her to nothing but white, and she just pushed when her body told her too instead. Her body was on fire, flames licking up her back, around her legs, into her stomach, her lungs, her heart. She dropped the belt from her mouth, and screamed as loud and long as she could. She could feel her flesh tearing, giving way. She was told to stop pushing, and then to start again, and there was more tearing, but more relief, too. 

And then someone else was screaming, wailing. Elena fell silent. That sound, that cry, was all she wanted to hear for the rest of her life.

The midwife lifted a little bundle away, dipped a cloth in warm water and washed away the blood, and cut the cord with a sharp knife. Elena’s voice trembled with exhaustion. Sweat trickled down her face. Bran's face came into view, white with anxiety. He was laid beside her, and it was his hand she had dug her nails into. She released it, with a murmured apology, but he seemed not to hear her.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Why, a boy, of course," the midwife replied. "What did you expect?”

She laid him in Elena’s arms, wrapped in grey furs and swaddling blankets. His little mouth opened and shut in his red, wrinkled face, his eyes screwed shut as he wailed. He was the most wonderful thing Elena had ever laid eyes on. His every cry gladdened her heart more than she could say.

“Feed him, girl, go on. You know how.”

Elena opened her firs and dropped the shoulder of her shift. Bran glanced away. Her baby latched on eagerly, full of life, full of strength.

“Aye, he’s a strong one,”  a woman with three buckets on her breastplate murmured, as if reading Elena’s thoughts. “A fine, healthy boy. You could hear it in his first cry.”

Elena stroked his little head, his soft strands of auburn hair. He was so delicate. She could not believe that he was real, and that he had come from her.

“What will you name him, Your Grace?” asked Jojen. Elena glanced up, and realised all the men but he and Bran and Hodor had been sent from the cave. The women, five in all, watched her and the baby with protective eyes. Elena looked back down at her son, still feeding, and then at Bran.

"You tell me his name," she whispered. "He's your nephew."

Bran pondered for a moment, leaning in to see the little bundle at her breast. “Eddard. His name is Eddard,” he finally replied.

"Perfect," Elena whispered. "Little Eddard."

“Prince Eddard,” echoed Meera. “Yes. That seems right.”

They spent the night in the cave, watching the snow fall slower and thinner until at last it stopped. When the grey light of dawn filtered in, the men of the mountains began to gather up their little camp.

“We could take you too, little prince,” the Flint man said to Bran. “It’s not safe beyond the Wall, not for crippled boys. Not for anyone.”

“We know that,” Jojen said firmly. “Yet, we must go. Queen Elena, on the other hand…”

“She shouldn’t have come this far,”  the midwife said. "Fools that you are, what did you mean by dragging a pregnant girl up here?"

“She wanted to be with me,” Bran said softly. “I didn’t want to go without her.”

A tear, hot and aching, finally seeped from the corner of Elena’s eye. “It’s alright,” she croaked out. Her throat was dry and sore, and every word was a lick of fire. “It’s alright, Bran. She’s right, I never should have come this far. I won’t even get to the Wall like this, let alone beyond it. This is folly.”

“Well said,” said the man who had spoken first. Dark eyes glittered in his wind-burnt, bearded face. “Come with us, child. We’ll see you and your little prince safe to White Harbour, to your lord.”

“Is Robb there?” she asked, barely daring to hope. Why would he be? But perhaps, he had come home to the North, had come to rescue her after all…

The Flint scratched his nose and pondered her question. “Now, I don’t know that, child. We get precious little news of what’s about that far south. We know White Harbour’s safe, aye, that much we do know. As safe as anywhere, these days.”

“Then let’s go.” The dull light of dawn was easing into the cave. The snow had stopped fully, leaving the world outside crisp and pure and new. New strength flooded Elena’s limbs. _To White Harbour, and Lord Manderly._ She remembered that fat, kind, merry old man; and she remembered all the men he’d brought with him to Winterfell under the merman banner, all those armed, fighting men. _He’ll keep me safe, keep my baby safe, and tell Robb I’m alive. By the time winter comes in earnest, we’ll all be reunited, and we’ll make Theon Greyjoy and Bastard of Bolton sorry they ever crossed us. We’ll rebuild Winterfell, and rule there, raise our children there. All will be well._

Coming down the mountain was infinitely easier than going up. Instead of struggling on foot, she rode a sturdy, shaggy little pony, one of the many the mountain men had brought with them. They ate oatcakes and dried fruit and meat, and drank warmed ale and wine. Every night they found a new cave or sturdy overhang to shelter under, and her companions all seemed to instinctively know the easiest, gentles slopes to go down. They had been six, but that number swelled to ten and then to twenty as they went on, more people joining her strange little honour guard. They were not a talkative people, but they were warm and friendly in their own way. Fear, who had been her constant companion these few days, had slipped away over the rocks and left her be.

Her heart still ached though, and her thoughts were always with Bran and Rickon. She could feel the old gods here, in the trees and stones, and she prayed to them fervently – _watch over my little brothers. See them safe. Let me see them again, one day._

 The going was faster, now. Elena carried little Teddy – that nickname suited him better than Ned, she found – in a sling, strapped close to her body and wrapped up well in furs and blankets. She did not have to stop to feed him, so their pace was quick – she was told they would make the source of the White Knife within a few days, thought they would have to travel further down to take boats down the river. Her mountain men took great pride in her son, laughing and singing in triumph and smiling at her whenever they came close, and when they made camp, they whittled toys, knitted blankets. Arya Flint, the youngest of them, was of an age with Elena herself and named for Robb’s great-grandmother. She walked beside the sledge every day, bringing Elena food and water, chattering away to her a mile a minute. Elena was overwhelmed by their kindness. She had never felt so safe, not even in Winterfell.

Days turned to weeks. They found the head of the White Knife and followed it down, but the further away from the mountains they got, the more dangerous it became to go overland. Soon, they stopped and made a more permanent camp by the river while the men felled some of the smaller trees and set about making rough canoes, as quickly as they could while ensuring they would carry them to White Harbour with no trouble. It still took a week and a half, with all of them working in shifts. Elena felt restless; she wanted to help, though they refused her any work more strenuous than fetching water and firewood, and she wanted to be away. Every crack in the woods, every moving shadow, seemed to her an army about to emerge and steal her and her little boy away.

 _The Boltons will not be looking for us. Theon saw to that._ It made her laugh a little, to herself. To think, she owed that turncloak her safety after all. Probably he was dead now too, killed by the Bastard of the Dreadfort. The thought brought her scant satisfaction, for some reason.

Still, when at last the boats were ready, she was glad to be away. Travel was even faster on the river, the current bearing them down to the sea, to White Harbour. They travelled by night and hid the boats and themselves by day, overcautious – but then, they were transporting precious cargo. Little Teddy, for his part, was a merry child – rosy cheeked, auburn haired and brown eyed, he rarely cried. He smiled his first smile on the river, and Elena thought of his Tully grandmother. _May the gods comfort her in her grief._ She sat in the bow, the river rocking her and her baby boy to sleep.

Several long weeks passed. The land around them changed, became flatter, more dense with trees, less snowy. Before they knew it, they were approaching White Harbour.

“How will we enter the city?”

They were encamped on the banks of the White Knife. Downriver, the lights and smoke of White Harbor could be seen shining in the clear, cold night.

“We’ll go overland, send messengers ahead to announce so’s the Mermen don’t close their gates and block the river. They’ll send knights out to fetch ye, no doubt.”

Elena felt a strange mix of elation and anxiety. She didn’t want to leave the mountain men, having grown to trust them so well. She hadn’t seen Lord Manderly in so long. Could she really trust him? Would Bolton men be waiting for her in the New Castle, to seize her and her son?

She decided she must approach the white-washed walls of White Harbour mounted, as a queen. She had hidden her crown in her furs when she gathered Bran and Rickon to take them into Winterfell’s crypts, and she unwrapped it now, and placed it on her head. She waited by the banks of the river at nightfall, attended by her friends, with Teddy in Arya’s arms as she stood beside Elena’s garron; together, they watched as Manderly men in green cloaks and armed with tridents alighted a small, flat pole-launch and marched towards them.

Their captain knelt before Elena’s mare. “Your Grace. My lord bids you welcome to White Harbour. You are safe now.”

“Thank you, ser,” Elena replied stiffly. Her mare shifted and tossed her head, as if sensing her mistress’ misgivings.

“I am commanded to take you into the city, Your Grace, and up to the New Castle in a covered litter. We don’t wish to alert the city to your presence – indeed, all the North believes you dead.” He stared at her, as if he scarcely believed his eyes.

Elena nodded. “I understand. Allow me a moment, please.” She slid off her mare and turned to her mountain men. “Thank you, all of you,” she said in a shaking voice. “I don’t know how to tell you how grateful I am. My son and I owe you our lives, and House Stark will never forget your service.”

They all nodded, silent and embarrassed as she was. “It was nothing,” Jeyne Norrey muttered at last. “Nothing but our duty.”

“Still, I will never forget,” Elena nearly whispered. She willed the tears in her eyes away.

Arya had tears in her eyes as well. “Neither will we,” she murmured, handing her the babe. “Good health and good fortune to you, and to your boy.”

Elena straightened her back and turned back to the Manderly guards, swallowing her sadness.

“Take me to your lord.”

The launch bobbed on the water as Elena stepped on. She turned, and watched her companions disappear into the mist, as if they had never been there at all.

She saw little of the city from the flat launch that one guard poled skilfully over the fog-swirled water and through the portcullis, nor from the covered litter that bore her and Teddy through the sleeping streets. They alighted in the courtyard of the New Castle, the seat of House Manderly, and were immediately taken up to the lord’s audience chamber. Elena’s heart was in her throat, and she tightened her grip a little on the baby, privately vowing she would let no-one take him from her, she would nurse and bathe him herself before she let another woman take him from her sight.

Someone offered to take the sleeping child to a chamber, to rest, but she snapped at them, out of exhaustion but also fear: “No-one will take my son from me!” The maidservant stepped back in surprise, stammering apologies, and Elena felt a hot flush of shame and regret, but was whisked away before she could tell her sorry.

 _The Merman’s Court._ That was what they called the audience chamber of the New Castle, and Elena saw now how appropriate it was. Painted sea-life of every kind peeked from the walls and floors, and Elena walked over painted fronds of seaweed feeling very much like she was deep underwater, the waves crashing over her head. Dread, flooding from some unknown source, some sixth sense, filled her stomach. _Remind you of anyone? Is the merman of Manderly really so different from the golden kraken of Greyjoy? They could both drag you down to the depths and drown you._

Wyman Manderly, thankfully, was a familiar face. He stood from his chair as she approached and held out his flabby arms.

“My Queen. Praise the Seven, for your safety, and for the safe delivery of your son. We had false reports, that you had been killed by the turncloak Greyjoy along with our poor princes, but to see you here standing before us – it is a miracle. White Harbour is yours.” He knelt before her, as did his attendant knights and ladies. Elena shifted awkwardly from foot to foot, arms burning with the weight of Teddy. _He still thinks Bran and Rickon are dead? Perhaps that is for the best. I should test the waters before I tell him._

“Rise, my lord, and thank you. It is a great relief to be among friends again.”

“That you are, Your Grace.” Manderly rose, but did not sit – another sign of respect that Elena keenly noted. “I promise you, no traitors will reach you here. Chambers are already prepared for you, and nursemaids ready to help with your son. A new mother, forced to take such an arduous journey – it hardly bears thinking about. Tonight, you must rest, and tomorrow, we will talk.”

“I would talk tonight, if it please you, my lord. What news of my husband? Has King Robb marched North to reclaim his homeland?”

A shadow passed over Wyman Manderly’s face, and he suddenly looked ancient. “Of course, you have not heard…Your Grace, perhaps this is a conversation better had in private.”

Fear came back again, and gripped Elena’s heart in an icy hand. “No, tell me now,” she said, voice ringing through the silent hall.

“You have been gone for some time, Your Grace…you would not know, but we all thought you dead. Truly, truly…” Manderly’s face was a picture of discomfort. “If we were not sure, he would never have done it. King Robb he…he took another bride.” Elena stared at him, uncomprehending. “Your lord father took offense at the haste of the wedding, so soon after your…death. To soothe him, Lord Edmure Tully offered to wed his daughter, your sister, Roslin. But at the wedding they…” His face crumpled with anger and grief. “They massacred our northmen. My sons included. And…Your Grace, I am so sorry. Your husband is dead.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please don't try to think about the timeline, you'll only hurt yourself. basically, elena was travelling to white harbour all through a storm of swords
> 
> thanks for reading everyone! i'll probably update a bit more speedily now g*me of thr*nes is airing because i have to deal with the trauma somehow


	9. our choices seal our fate

_Trapped again._

That was all Elena could bring herself to think of her new living situation. Her chambers in the New Castle were a joined set of spacious, colonnaded vaults, with high vaulted ceilings carved of white stone and pillars engraved with fronds of sea-weed and walls painted with vivid mermaids; a vault made for precious stones and gold, cold bright metal. Lovely, to be sure, but cold. There were no windows, not that Elena could have bestirred herself to look from one.

Instead, she lay on the bed with its blue and green silk hangings and white furs and gave herself over to oblivion.

She wept; at first fiercely, biting down on a pillow to muffle screams which seem to come to her unbidden, ripped from some deep darkness inside her by some unknown force. Soon, though, she tired, and now she lay on her side with tears still falling, passive and silent, soaking the sheets below. Someone brought her food, and took it away again, uneaten. In the room adjoining, somewhere in the cold white echoing labyrinth, she could hear her son crying, but no matter how hard she tried to move to comfort him, her limbs would not obey her. She could no longer tell how much time had passed; what seemed like a few hours could well have been days – either way, eternity stretched before her. An eternity of blank, white, empty misery.

Elena made no attempt to turn her mind away from the thoughts which tortured her, hour by hour, day by day. She invited them in with open arms; wallowed in them, reveled in them. _Robb, dead. Robb, married to another, thinking her dead. Lady Catelyn, separated from her children, dead. Maester Luwin, Ser Rodrik, Beth Cassel, Theon Greyjoy, all dead, dead, dead._ She wept for all of them, even Theon, for the boy he used to be, the brother he was to Robb. All she had to give them was her tears. _My people. I was their Queen, I was supposed to help them, protect them. Robb was supposed to love me, how could he marry someone else? How could he die like that? This isn’t how it’s supposed to be, dear gods, this isn’t how it’s supposed to_ be… _Ah, but this is how it is._

She went round and round like this until she thought she would go mad. Grief after grief after grief, stretched before her like mirrors, each reflecting back the same awful truths. _For me…it was all for me._

 _Did I dream of this?_ She remembered a nightmare she’d had in Winterfell, a direwolf pierced by a hundred cross-bow bolts. Her favor to Robb, her blue ribbon, spotted with blood. _Did I do this? Did he die for me, because of me? Would that I had died with him. I should be dead, too._

“Your Grace.”

Elena ignored the girl. They often did this, her little maidservants; piping up in their reedy little voices, frightened for her, unable to understand the depths she had sunk too, trying to call her back. They wanted her to eat, to bathe, to hold her baby – didn’t they understand that she couldn’t do _any_ of that? Didn’t they see that she was _gone,_ it was all too much, she had surrendered, she just wanted to lay here and _die -_

“Your _Grace.”_

This one was more persistent than the others. _Go away!_ Elena rolled over to tell her just that, but stopped when she saw her.

“Please, Your Grace. My lord uncle sent me to tend you. Your maids say you will not eat, but you must. If you do not, you will die, and you cannot die.”

 _Gods be good, not you too! Will you all forbid me my peace! Will I never join you in death!_ At the foot of her bed, the girl with green hair stood defiant, and behind her crowded the ghosts that would not let Elena alone, all echoing her words in silence. They were dead, and yet Elena saw them clear as day; Lady Catelyn, eyeless, blood dripping slowly from her slit throat; Maester Luwin, white as snow and crimson with his lifeblood still draining from him; Ser Rodrik and Beth and all the people of Winterfell, dead from half a hundred wounds. Theon Greyjoy’s mocking grin was as red as a bloody sunrise, stretching his cheeks grotesquely. She would know Robb anywhere, even in death, and she knew the bloodied figure dressed in his best grey doublet for a wedding feast was him even though he _had no head._ Her mind reeled with the horror. _I am delirious,_ she managed, one clear though through the fog in her mind. _From lack of food._

Elena gave a sob of misery and fear. “Please,” she whispered in a voice hoarse and quiet from misuse. “Please.”

“What is it, Your Grace? What can I bring you?”

_Peace. Gods have mercy, bring me peace._

Footsteps. The girl whispered something to someone in the doorway, and returned. “I’ve sent for something warm to drink, Your Grace, and bread. Here –” A hand reached out and wrapped the furs and blankets more firmly around Elena’s shoulder. “You must be freezing. I’ll build up the fire.”

Elena lifted her head a little, to watch her. Everything was blurry, and the room span on a sickening axis. She could only make out colours – the girl’s green hair, the blooming red of the fire as she stoked and fed it back to life. The girl returned, and Elena felt the bed dip as she sat down on it.

“There. The room will soon warm up.” A cry started up from the next room, thin and plaintive and pathetic. “The prince is awake, Your Grace. Would you like me to bring him to you?”

“Poor little orphan,” Elena muttered deliriously. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the girl shake her head.

“Prince Eddard is no orphan, Your Grace. He has his mother – he has you.”

“No,” Elena replied. _Why can’t any of you understand? I’m gone, I’m over, I can’t go on._

 _“Yes,”_ the infuriating girl insisted. “You must go on for him, Your Grace. This is not the end. The North remembers, and they will remember their prince. They will remember you. Here, I will bring him to you. It will do you good to hold him.”

The weight disappeared from the bed again, and Elena felt suddenly untethered. _Wait, no, come back. Please don’t leave me. I’m afraid._

She did return, of course, and Elena sat up in a dizzying wave when she heard Teddy’s little stuttering cries. He smelt of milk and soap, clean and soft. The girl laid him in her arms.

Elena stared at him, drank him in. His wisps of auburn hair, his big brown eyes blinking up at her, his rosebud lips, his little fingers curling around her finger, squeezing. She could feel his little body expanding with every breath, his pulse through the paper-thin skin of his hand. He was so full of life. _I’ll die if you die, little one. If I have to lose you too, I’ll die._

“He’s a strong boy, Your Grace. We rejoiced when we heard the news.”

 _Yes, a strong boy. My lord father would be_ so _pleased._ The thought was bitter as wormwood. _My lord father, who had my husband and mother-in-law killed. Oh, I will not forget_ _you, my lord. Rest assured._

Anger flooded her soul, hot and life-affirming as fire. How dare he? How dare he take everything away from her, now that she had come so far? She had grown since she had left the Twins, left the insidious in-fighting and petty cruelty of her family, presided over and encouraged by her lecherous, small-minded, faithless father. Was she going to let herself slide back, grow small and frightened and meek again? Was she really going to let herself die here, and let them live on, unpunished? _No,_ she thought defiantly, cradling her son. _No,_ echoed the ghosts of those she had lost.

A maid appeared at the door with a laden tray. The green-haired girl turned to Elena. “Will you eat now, Your Grace?”

Elena looked down at Teddy’s face once more. His eyelids drooped as he fell asleep in her arms. “Yes. I believe I will,” Elena said.

Once she started eating, it was hard to stop. There was warmed milk, thick warm bread with melting butter, cold ham, grapes, and a bowl of berries in thick cream, frosted with sugar. Elena tried to eat as slowly as she could, wary of making herself sick. When she was done, she turned to her green-haired companion once again, who had been rocking Teddy as she ate.

“How long has it been since I came here? Since I last ate?”

“Weeks, Your Grace.”

Elena reeled. “ _Weeks?”_

“Aye. Our maester said you were in shock. My lord grandfather himself came down to sit by your side, often, to try and get you to talk, but you would not. We fed you a little, water and honey, enough to keep you alive. You would take no more than that.”

Elena was suddenly filled with love and gratitude for good, old Wyman Manderly, who cared enough to sit beside her in her grief; and shame, that she had allowed herself to wallow for weeks while good people fretted over her wellbeing. “I don’t even remember.”

“Grief can play some cruel tricks on the mind, Your Grace. It’s over, now.”

“It still hurts,” Elena admitted. The girl gave her a sad smile.

“I know. I lost my uncle to the Red Wedding. I still expect to see him around every corner. He was very dear to me, to all of us.” Elena saw now that the girl was a little younger than her, fourteen or fifteen; she looked small and sad and lost, all of a sudden.

 _The Red Wedding. So that’s what they’ve dubbed it._ Elena shook her head, trying to clear the fog from her head like a dog shaking water from its fur.

“I’m sorry, I never even asked your name.”

“I’m Wylla Manderly, as it please Your Grace. My father is Ser Wylis Manderly, Lord Wyman’s eldest son and heir.”

“A Lannister hostage,” Elena recalled, feeling her wits return to her. “I’m sorry.” _The whole North grieves for their loved ones, not just me._

“Please, don’t trouble yourself. We have hope to see him again.”

“Gods, it’s all ruined, isn’t it?”

Wylla Manderly fixed her with a penetrating gaze. “Not while you and our prince live, Your Grace. No, I think not.”

It felt indescribably good to slip into the hot water of the bath. The heat seeped into her bones and warmed her from the inside out, and Elena could feel the aches of her long journey, the dirt of the road, dissolving into the water. She dipped her hands in and washed away the dried tears from her face. On the journey to White Harbor, she had dipped her feet in icy river water, and washed her hair in snow. Her hair had grown wild and tangled, her hands calloused from chopping wood. Now, she ran those calloused hands over her skin and vowed she would not let the strength she had gained slip away. She leant back and closed her eyes in bliss, as Lady Wylla soaped her hair and ran a comb through it carefully, the grease and sweat from her weeks of catatonia finally washing away. The maids cut her nails and trimmed her hair and scrubbed her back.

Wylla and the maids dried her off and dressed her carefully, in a gown of turquoise velvet slashed to show the snowy linen underneath, embroidered with silver thread. A silver seashell on a length of white silk ribbon was tied around her neck, and silver combs carved like leaping fish pinned up her hair. It felt strange to dress in velvet and silk, to be adorned in precious metal, when she had spent so long in wool and fur. Elena looked at herself long and hard in the mirror and searched for some sign, some outward scar to denote the pain she carried inside. The figure in the mirror stared back – gaunt and thin, thinner than Elena had ever seen herself, and pale. Her eyes were dark and sunken in her cheeks, and her freckles and scars stood out starkly on her face.

When Elena entered his solar, Lord Wyman immediately stood and knelt, with difficulty, and Elena felt a wave of pity for him.

“No, rise, please. Sit down, my lord.”

“Your Grace, it gladdens my heart to see you up. We feared you would never rise from your bed again.” He clearly did not mean to sit until Elena did, so she took her place at the low little table, carved from bone-white driftwood. The chairs were made of the same wood, cushioned with turquoise velvet. From the round windows, Elena could see the steel-grey sea heaving and thrashing.

“You and yours have cared for me well, my lord. I am forever in your debt.”

Lord Wyman waved her words away. “We did nothing more than our duty, Your Grace.”

“No,” Elena said, meaning it. “You did more than that.”

Lord Wyman looked a little embarrassed at the depth of her feeling. “Your Grace, words cannot begin to describe….the horror, when we heard that you and the princes were dead…the joy, to know you were truly alive, and delivered of a son. I only wish the king had lived to hear…”

Elena merely nodded. Her throat ached with tears, but she willed them away. _No more of that. I must put tears aside._

“What happened, my lord? I must have details.”

“Your Grace, I…the details, they may distress you, and I have no wish…”

“I am a Queen, my lord, not a child. Believe me when I say, I can deal with any distress. I wish to know how King Robb died, surrounded by allies, at a _wedding,_ of all things. I want to know how the North stands, what forces still remain to us, and who our enemy is now.”

A flicker of a smile passed over Lord Wyman’s face. “Very well, my Queen. I regret to say, that your lord father has proved treacherous.”

_And the sun rose in the East today._

“King Robb took a new bride not long after we had news of your death,” Lord Wyman continued, looking uncomfortable. Elena nodded to show that she wanted to hear, despite the lump in her throat. _It’s not as if he set me aside._ “A maiden of the Westerlands, the Lady Jeyne Westerling. I must admit, Your Grace, it did not sit easy with myself and my fellow lords, but King Robb wed the girl to preserve her honor, I believe.”

“That sounds like him,” Elena said softly, struggling to keep her face and tone impassive. “What happened to the girl?”

Lord Wyman cleared his throat. “She was left at Riverrun, with her family. They are in the custody of the Lannisters, now.”

“She is safe? They will not hurt her?”

“I doubt it, Your Grace, thought it does you great credit to ask,” Lord Wyman said with a gentle smile ghosting his lips.

“This Jeyne Westerling did nothing wrong, and nor did Robb,” Elena spoke over her aching heart. _Oh, he never loved me, and I never loved him. We knew each other less than a month, all told. But I could have loved him – in time, I could have loved him._ It was that possibility she mourned for, and for the father Teddy would never know. “All the world thought me dead. Please, continue.”

“Your lord father took offense at a wedding so soon after you, his daughter, had passed. He also claimed that King Robb had broken his marriage vows – his vow to protect you, that is – when he sent you away to Winterfell. I believe he also expected that in the event of your death, King Robb would wed one of your other sisters in your place, though this was never part of the original agreement that had you wed to King Robb. Lord Walder sent word that if the King in the North could not keep his word to protect one young woman, then he – Lord Walder – need not keep his word to support King Robb’s cause. Your brothers left Riverrun with all their strength that very day.”

“A clever excuse.”

“Your Grace?”

“My father cared not a jot for my safety or my life. No doubt he was merely sour that he would no longer be the grandfather of a king, and decided to exact petty revenge by removing his support.”

“So we surmised, Your Grace,” Lord Wyman smiled tightly. “Lady Catelyn suggested we soothe Lord Walder’s sore pride by offering to make him the grandfather of the Lord of Riverrun instead. A marriage contract between Lord Edmure and your sister, Lady Roslin, was hastily agreed upon.”

_Oh, Roslin. She must have been so happy. She was born to be a great lady, and wear fine silks, and live in a beautiful castle like Riverrun._

“Other marriage contracts were struck as well – the contract between one of your brothers and your sister-in-law, the Princess Arya, were reaffirmed, Roose Bolton swore to marry your sister Walda, and my own son Wendel offered to wed a Frey maiden. He went to the Twins for Lord Edmure’s wedding, along with most of your husband’s strength.” Lord Wyman’s face seemed pitted and lined with grief and anger. “And from what we can gather, the Freys and Boltons turned on them at the wedding feast and slew every last man. They never suspected – _we_ never suspected a thing. Every man who entered the Twins with King Robb and took bread and salt from your father was murdered.”

“They broke guest right,” Elena said in shock, the full magnitude of her father’s crime crashing down upon her. “Gods curse them.”

Wyman Manderly looked at her. “I must say, Your Grace, it is heartening to see you condemn your father. You could be forgiven for taking his side.” There was a critical tone to his voice, and Elena suddenly thought, _this is a test. He could so easily make me a prisoner here, hostage to ensure my father is brought down. He could take Teddy from me._ She had forgotten, momentarily, that she herself was a Frey, member of the family that the Manderlys, along with all the North, were sworn now to despise.

“No,” she replied, choosing her words carefully. “I could not be forgiven. Lord Frey, Lord Bolton, and all the men of their houses have committed a dreadful crime. He is no longer my father, and they are no longer my family.”

Lord Wyman looked at her for a moment, and then raised a glass goblet from the table in front of him. “Well said, Your Grace.”

“What of the bride and groom?”

“Lord Edmure is held captive at the Twins. Your sister is with child, we now hear.” _Gods protect her._

“Who now controls the North?”

“Roose Bolton. The Lannisters have granted him dominion over the North and command of Winterfell, to be passed down to his heirs in perpetuity. It is an abomination,” he spat scornfully, “And a sure sign that this was the Lannisters’ doing, all along. They were the architects of this heinous crime. But we will not submit, Your Grace, rest assured. Your son will ascend his father’s throne.”

 _Words are wind, my lord. No matter how forcefully you speak, you will need swords to make that oath a reality._ Elena pursed her lips, and pondered her own goblet.

“How, exactly, do you propose to do that?”

“First of all, Your Grace, I must ask you to make a great sacrifice. Please, hear me out before you refuse.”

Elena frowned, and set her goblet down. “Whatever do you mean?”

“I will do my utmost to protect you here in White Harbor, Your Grace, but the risk is tremendous. It is a small miracle that news of your still living has not yet spread, but I fear it will, despite the precautions we have taken. The existence of your son…if that were to get out, I dread to think what would happen.”

A nest of vipers squirmed in Elena’s belly. “I sense you are building up to a solution.”

“Not one you will be enthusiastic about, but I beg you, Your Grace, to listen. I believe we must send Prince Eddard away from White Harbor.”

Elena stared at him in horror. “No. My son, away from me? No.”

“I know how this must pain you, Your Grace…” Elena tuned out from the rest of his sentence. A great fury rose in her heart. _After all I suffered to bring him into the world? After how I worked to see him safe? I will not let you take him from me, no,_ no! _I will_ die _first._

“…If your location is discovered – and I think it may well be, I do not believe it is within anyone’s power to prevent it, there are too many eyes here in White Harbor – then Bolton _will_ come to claim you. But if Prince Eddard were hidden elsewhere, with a strong and loyal guard, then we could bide our time with him in safety.”

The more he talked, the more Elena’s resolve softened. _He is right. I hate it, but he is right. As Robb’s widow alone, I have limited value, but with his son…his son is a treasure beyond words, and a threat to the Boltons. They will want to control him. They may want to kill him. They may take me, but they must never, never have my son._

“Where do you propose to send him?”

Lord Wyman seemed relieved to see that he might be getting somewhere. “Greywater Watch, Your Grace. The crannogmen have ways of hiding their castle, they even say the place can move around…and they are loyal to the Starks, loyal to the bone. Howland Reed would make an excellent guardian for Prince Eddard. He would be safe there.”

“And while my son is being fostered in Greywater Watch? What will we do? Play _cyvasse_ in this solar until he becomes a man?”

Lord Wyman chuckled. “Now, when you put it that way, Your Grace, you make me seem a fool. We must bide our time, yes. Our forces are depleted, and Roose Bolton is not a man to be trifled with. Your Grace, it may stick in our throats, but we must swear fealty to him, and never let him see the knives hidden behind our backs.”

“And what will we do with those knives?”

Wyman Manderly’s eyes glittered in his broad face. “Why, we will cut our meat, Your Grace.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow okay that last sentence is fucking stupid. it was supposed to be a reference to the frey pies in adwd i'm sorry


	10. better not to breathe, than to breathe a lie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning for implied rape and torture, please take care of yourselves! this chapter's a pretty nasty one

“There. I win again.”

Wylla sat back on her cushions, smug. Elena sighed.

“I’m your queen, aren’t you supposed to let _me_ win?”

“That would hardly be fair, Your Grace.”

“You should be nicer to me,” Elena said with a teasing smile.

“Am I not nice, Your Grace?” Wylla grinned. “My deepest apologies. I’ll make allowances for your lack of skill, the next time we play.”

Elena laughed. They were sat in Wylla’s sitting room in the west tower of the New Castle over-looking the sea, around the _cyvasse_ table. These moments with Wylla were the only moments Elena allowed herself to drop her guard and let go of her grief, the only moments it felt possible to laugh. The green-haired girl was witty and fierce and kind, and seemed to be making it her mission in life to make Elena happy. Elena knew it was probably all duty, but Wylla had a fierce devotion to the Starks that seemed reassuringly genuine. And these days, these few days of peace after the fear and the pain she had been through, Elena was disinclined to mistrust someone offering friendship.

It was good to be distracted. The hollow ache in Elena’s chest still wouldn’t go away, even after the intervening weeks filled with gentle treatment by the Manderlys. They had sent Teddy away mere days after Elena had consented, after ravens to and from Greywater Watch had been sent with coded messages, and a guard had been arranged, small enough to be discreet, but strong enough to keep the little prince safe, and a wet nurse to keep him fed and cared for. Elena had watched, hooded and cloaked, as the little boat slipped out of the portcullis in the dead of night and onto the river, oar-locks muffled, shrouded in mist. She had allowed herself to weep, but silently, the salt of her tears indistinguishable from the salt of the sea-wind on her lips.

Like with Robb, she had only had Teddy for the smallest length of time, but unlike with Robb, that fact did nothing to ease the pain of being parted from her son. He had been hers, hers alone, and when she held him and looked into his brown eyes, saw his little smile, heard his coos of delight when he saw her, she had felt more loved than she ever had in her life; and in return, she loved him so much she felt blinded by it. To be parted from him was a physical ache; she could feel it in her belly, in the deepest part of her, like something vital had been ripped from her abdomen. She had spent those last few days feeding him, playing with him, rocking him to sleep; drinking in the sensations of him, memorizing each fine hair, each little finger.

The night before he left, she had been struck by a sudden squall of fear so deep and pure that it shook her to her core. All of a sudden, she woke in the darkness with a need to take Teddy and go somewhere, anywhere, where they would not be known. She realized, all of a sudden, that no matter where he went, her son would never be safe in Westeros. Even the northern lords were a danger to him, would _use_ him to regain their independence, and his safety would be of less importance than his claim. Lord Manderly had promised they would be safe, but he also promised that Teddy would be King in the North after Robb, and that would mean war, not safety. Elena wanted to _go,_ she wanted to go somewhere no-one would bother them, Braavos or Myr or Tyrosh, somewhere warm and beautiful, to a manse with high walls and strong doors that she could hide her baby boy behind. She even got up out of bed and put on her cloak, went to Teddy’s cradle and picked him up, before remembering it was hopeless. She had nowhere to go, and no-one to take her. They may not have been Lord Manderly’s prisoner in fact, but they were in a sense – they were at his mercy utterly, and his plan was the only one they had. She went back to bed with Teddy in her arms, and cried herself to sleep.

Wylla watched her queen carefully over the _cyvasse_ table. Only a year or two older than her, and yet Wylla felt a gulf of experience between them. Queen Elena’s brown eyes would often go so distant, her expression blank as she turned into her grief, and Wylla would try to bring her back, but she knew she was gone to that private, quiet place of pain. It was a place Wylla was becoming quite familiar with herself.

“Your Grace?”

Elena came back to herself. “Yes, sorry.”

“Another game?”

“What, and let you beat me again? Not likely. A good queen knows when to pick her battles.”

 _Pick your battles._ Those were the words Elena had to live by, day by day. The battle Lord Wyman had picked was a long one, to be joined when her son was a man, many years hence. In the meantime, word of Elena being alive would be sent to her father and all the lords of Westeros, including the Lannisters. Without her pregnancy, she would be considered of no importance, and probably given back to the custody of her father, to do with what he would. Lord Wyman assured her he would ask that she remain in his custody, though he did not think it likely his request would be granted. It was no matter. When Teddy was a man grown and a trained warrior, an army of Northerners would have long been prepared for him, and would rise at his word to help him take back his throne. On that day, Elena would be free, and would be brought back to Winterfell in triumph as Queen Mother.

That day was a long way off, to Elena’s mind. She practiced patience, and learned the long game at the _cyvasse_ table, and sitting in the solar with Lady Wylla and her sister Wynafryd, sewing, singing, talking of nothing. The days slid by. The weather outside the windows of the New Castle grew colder, more overcast, bitter freezing winds blowing in off the sea to howl around the towers and sneak fingers in between the gaps in the stones. One day, a sudden swirl of snow descended on the castle. Elena watched the snowflakes melt into the iron-grey sea and collect on the rooves of White Harbor from a window, a shawl wrapped tight around her shoulders, and hoped that her baby was somewhere warm and sheltered, being rocked and sang to sleep.

Elena was not permitted to step foot outside the castle, nor go sailing from the harbor, for her own safety. Her only breath of fresh air came from the godswood, where she prayed for hours, daily. She was used to the rigid, structured worship of the sept, where there was a time and place for every prayer, hymn and sermon, and ceremony which had to be strictly observed at every turn. The Manderlys also kept the Faith of the Seven, and the New Castle had a pretty little whitewashed sept in the outer ward, but Elena had never visited it. In the godswood, there was no ceremony, no structure. In the godswood, she was free.

The godswood of the New Castle was much smaller than Winterfell’s. Not a vast, sprawling forest, but a small and well kept little wood, filled with oak and pine, with shafts of sunlight streaming between them everywhere. The salty sea air would have poisoned them, but for the glass dome covering the circular garden, tucked away behind the walls of the inner ward. The air was always warm and thick and damp, like the glass gardens in Winterfell. Elena’s footsteps were muffled by the thick carpet of moss and lichen as she walked.

The heart tree lay in the very center of the wood, its roots clinging to a pool fed by a stream of freshwater from the White Knife that had been channeled through the walls, into the very heart of the castle. Elena knelt in the spongy moss and cupped her hands in the cool, clear pool, splashing refreshing water over her face and relieving it from the oppressive humidity of the godswood. She closed her eyes, heaved a sigh, and began to pray. She prayed first for the souls of those she had lost, Robb, Lady Catelyn, all the good northern men who had died with them at the Twins. She prayed for Maester Luwin, Ser Rodrik, little Beth Cassel, Mikken the blacksmith, and all the people of Winterfell. She prayed for Bran and Rickon, Meera and Jojen, Osha and Hodor, prayed they would all find safety, and answers, and that they would all see each other again. She prayed for her sister Roslin, and her baby, and her lord husband Edmure Tully. She even prayed a little for Theon Greyjoy, that the gods were punishing him justly.

Most of all, she prayed for her baby boy, and the men protecting him. _May they be clever, and skilled at arms, and strong, and loyal. May the woman who nurses him now instead of me be gentle and kind and loving. May the Reeds raise him well, to be fair and just and strong and brave. May he be happy. May he be safe._ Tears trickled from under her closed eyelids, but she did not move to brush them away.

“Your Grace, my apologies for disturbing you.”

Elena opened her eyes, and turned. Wynafryd Manderly stood behind her, wearing a solemn expression. The dark haired lady was twenty, and engaged to Elena’s nephew, Rhaegar Frey, second son of Elena’s older brother Aenys. Elena pitied her that fate. None of her relatives could ever be described as handsome, and Elena had known most of them for slimy, petty little men even before they conspired to murder her royal husband. Lady Wynafryd was clever and patient and sensible, though, and more than a match for Elena’s small-minded nephew.

“You have no need to apologize, my lady.” Elena wiped her eyes discreetly on the sleeve of her gown.

“My lord grandfather sent me to bring you to his solar, Your Grace. He has news for you.”

Elena’s heart leapt to her throat. _News of Teddy._ Good or ill, she could not decipher from looking at Lady Wynafryd’s face, so she stood and followed her to Lord Wyman’s solar.

The Lord of White Harbor was wey-faced and melancholy. He stood as Elena entered, but as soon as she took in his expression, her heart plummeted. _It is bad news. Oh, Teddy, I’m sorry I didn’t take you far away, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry._

“My queen, I have had tidings from the Twins. Your father expresses his relief at your recovery, and sends your kin Symond, Jared and Rhaegar Frey to bring my son Wendel’s bones home to White Harbor.”

“Is that all?” Elena’s heart hammered in her chest. “Tell me all.”

Lord Wyman looked positively wretched. “Lord Bolton has sent a raven as well. He says…” Lord Wyman stopped, and then plucked a scroll of paper up off the table. “Perhaps you should read for yourself.”

Elena took the paper with trembling fingers. As she scanned down the page, her fingers shook so that she could barely read, and her eyes filled with tears, blurring the words until she could no longer understand them.

“He says he has my son,” she said in a thick, quiet voice. “He has Prince Eddard. His men intercepted his guard on their way to Greywater Watch.”

“Your Grace, perhaps you ought to sit –”

“Be quiet,” Elena snapped. Rage burned away her tears. “You swore he would be safe. You _told_ me he would be safe.” _I should never have come here. I should have stayed in the mountains, I should have gone across the Narrow Sea to Braavos. I should have been quicker, braver, more clever. I should have, I should have, I should have._ All their plans were in ruins now, but that scarcely mattered, when weighed against her baby’s life. She pictured him in the ruins of Winterfell, in the hands of cold, dead-eyed, soft-spoken Roose Bolton, and a bolt of fear went through her.

“I thought he would be, Your Grace. Believe me, I am as angry as you are.”

“There is no _possible_ way you could be as angry as I am!” Elena crumpled the paper into her fist and slammed it on the table. “Bolton demands I be sent to Winterfell. He says he has permission from the Lannisters to wed me to his bastard, and claim the North in my name until my son comes of age.”

“Your Grace, we will not allow him to take you, rest assured. I will not give you over to Bolton’s bastard.”

“You have no choice now, my lord. He has my son.”

Lord Wyman looked at her in horror. Elena glared back. “Your Grace, please. The man is cruel, savage –”

“I know what he is.” _He starved Lady Hornwood until she ate her own fingers._ “You will send me to him, nonetheless. You have no choice. _They have my son._ ” _I would die for my baby. Marriage? That is nothing, my lord._ Lord Wyman nodded, cowed.

The Freys arrived a week later. Elena stood next to Lord Wyman as her brothers and nephew entered the New Castle, in the high-ceilinged entrance hall. She had not slept since Lord Bolton’s letter arrived, and she felt sure she looked as bad as she felt, but she could no longer bring herself to care.

When Symond embraced her, Elena did not return the gesture, standing stiff and cold with his arms around her. He soon withdrew. She gave Jared and Rhaegar each her hand to kiss, but her face remained blank. _Go away inside, and let it all happen._

“Sweet sister,” Symond said with a greasy smile. “I cannot tell you our relief and joy to see you once again. When we heard the dreadful rumor of you death, our lord father was so wracked with grief we thought him like to die, but when good Lord Wyman sent word that you had lived, all strength and joy returned to him.”

When Elena said nothing to that, Jared stepped forward. “We were more glad still to hear you were delivered of a son. Thank the gods he is safe with Lord Bolton in Winterfell, and you soon to join him.”

It took all of Elena’s restraint not to scream at him.

The thing she hated most, Elena reflected as she sat at the high table in Lord Wyman’s hall, her food uneaten while the Freys feasted around her, was the falseness. They knew she had tried to hide from them, tried to hide Teddy, tried to run. Why did they not say so? Why did they all insist on hiding their enmity? She watched Lord Wyman laughing, holding up his goblet in a toast to the men that killed his son, and thought viciously that she hated him, too.

At her other side, Wylla laid a hand on hers. “I know,” she whispered soft in her ear. “I know.”

Wylla helped her and the maids pack her things, her gowns borrowed from Wylla and Wynafryd and made up from the gowns of Lord Wyman’s late wife, into her trunk. Lord Bolton had sent a bird full of polite platitudes, asking for Elena’s measurements so that he could have a wedding gown made up, and a maiden’s cloak in Stark white and grey. They wanted her to come to them a Stark, not a Frey, to give the Bolton’s rule over the North some small legitimacy.

Elena Stark left White Harbor by travelling back up the White Knife, the way she had come more than two moons ago, but this time in a ship with the flayed man of Bolton on the sails instead of a rough-cut canoe, and alone, without her baby. Lord Manderly was in his own ship, and his granddaughters, Elena’s constant companions in those months, were to be left behind in the New Castle. Elena was surrounded everywhere by Bolton guards, but she felt, paradoxically, more free than she ever had in White Harbor. Perhaps it was the open sky, grey as flint but dizzyingly wide, and the sharp, cold breeze in her face when she stood on the bow, the fresh spray of the river peppering her face. Elena did not allow herself to feel despair, or fear, or misery. _If I look back, I am lost._ She had made choices, and now she had to live with them. She would not let the Boltons break her. _And when their backs are turned, I will find some way to slip a knife into them, as they did Robb. I will take my baby and we’ll go far, far away, where no-one will ever hurt us again._

They travelled for several weeks, up the White Knife half-way to Long Lake, and then overland the rest of the way to Winterfell. Every tree, rock and stream reminded Elena of her first journey to Winterfell, when she was newly pregnant with Teddy, newly wed, newly crowned. Life had been so sweet then, and she had not even known it; had not known how precious the things she held were, nor how soon they would be snatched from her. Her heart was heavy, but her spirit did not flag – soon, she would be with her son, no matter what else she had to endure. That would be sweet, to hold him in her arms again, sweet enough that her marriage to Ramsay Snow meant little and less to her.

Elena wasn’t stupid, though. She’d spent long enough in the North now to have heard the stories. Lady Hornwood, of course. And the girls. The hunts. The flaying. _My noble lord husband,_ she thought bitterly on the last day of the ride. She steeled herself for the horror. _I will not end like Lady Hornwood and the others. I will_ not. _Maester Luwin told me I must live, and live I shall._

They passed through the winter town on the road up to the castle. The last time she had ridden this way, Elena had been greeted with crowds cheering her, Robb, and the North, their breath steaming the air, their children running under the feet of her horse. This time, all Elena saw were burned shells of houses. The ashes turned the snow a muddy grey. No children ran. No voices shouted.

When they rode through the newly repaired gate, Elena half-expected to see Bran and Rickon and Maester Luwin waiting for her, as they had before. Her heart ached as she took in the yard, and their absence. There were some familiar faces, though. When Elena saw a skinny girl of ten or eleven with auburn curls, she forgot herself entirely, and slid off her horse to embrace her before anyone else.

“Beth? Can it be you?”

“Your – I mean, my lady. Yes, it is,” Beth Cassel said softly. She allowed Elena to hug her, tentatively cupping her arms around Elena’s waist in return.

“Oh, my dear, I thought you dead, I’m so sorry,” Elena whispered into her curls. “I would have taken you with me, and protected you, otherwise.” She released her, and stood back to get a better look at her former handmaiden. The girl was older, her face more gaunt, and she wore a haunted look that Elena imagined matcher her own.

“We thought the same of you. Lord Ramsay took us with him to the Dreadfort, after the traitor Greyjoy burned the castle,” Beth said dully. She would not look Elena in the eye. Elena was seized by a sudden suspicion.

“Did he hurt you?” she asked in a low voice, hands on Beth’s shoulders. Before she could answer, a soft cough interrupted them.

“My lady.” Roose Bolton’s voice was soft, and his words courteous, but they froze Elena’s blood all the same.

She released Beth, and turned to her future husband and father-in-law. She held her head high, and looked her husband’s murderer in his pale grey eyes.

“Lord Bolton.” She curtseyed. Roose Bolton inclined his head, and motioned with his hand to the man standing next to him.

“My lady, may I present my son, Ramsay Bolton, heir to the Dreadfort.”

“Lady Stark.” Elena’s betrothed knelt and kissed her hand. “You’ve had a long, terrible journey, but you’re safe now.” Ramsay Snow – Ramsay _Bolton_ , Elena corrected herself internally – was as soft-spoken and pale-eyed as his father, but that was where their resemblance ended. White, pasty-skinned, broad-bodied, he was a far cry from Elena’s first bridegroom.

“And, naturally, you know my lady wife, your sister.” _My sister?_ Elena had not noticed the fat girl stood behind Lord Roose. _Walda. My sister, Walda._

The girl smiled at Elena, nervously. All the bravado she had had at the Twins when they were girls seemed to have evaporated. “Hello, sister. Elly. It’s been so long – too long.” She moved to embrace Elena, who did not return it.

“There.” It was the bastard that spoke now, not Lord Roose. “We’re all acquainted – and reacquainted. Come, my lady, you must be exhausted. Let me take you to your room.”

Elena swallowed her disgust, physical and emotional, and linked her arm through his proffered one.

“I thank you, my lord,” she said softly. The words nearly choked her. “Tell me, when will I be allowed to see my son?”

“Little Lord Eddard is sleeping at the moment, I am afraid,” Roose Bolton replied. “Once you are wed, you may see him again.” _And if I run, his life will be forfeit._ Elena heard the threat well enough behind the polite words.

She was not permitted her old rooms – those belonged to Lord Ramsay now, would be his by right once he wed Elena and could claim Winterfell in her son’s name. Instead she was shown to Lady Sansa’s old room, in an east-facing tower that would get the sunlight at dawn. It smelt musty and unused, and a little smoky, though the flames had not reach this high. Elena wondered what had become of her, Sansa Stark, the sister-in-law she had never known. They said she had poisoned King Joffrey Baratheon and fled King’s Landing, in revenge for her murdered brother. Elena hoped that was true; that Lady Sansa had gotten some justice for Elena’s murdered king.

The maids were unpacking Elena’s trunk when there came a knock on the door. Beth, who had been given to Elena as a handmaiden once again, opened it at Elena’s nod.

Ramsay Snow entered, already smirking. It was an unpleasant expression on his round, dull, pale face. “My lady. I hope you are settling in well.”

“Well enough,” Elena replied stiffly. She was glad she had her maids around her, but Beth and the other two women looked scared and cowed before the Bastard of the Dreadfort, eyes on the floor. Elena misliked that greatly. “After all, I did live here for some time.”

Snow’s smiled only widened. “Ah, yes. Of course. It is I who am the stranger here, not you.”

_I could play the Stranger if you want me to, bastard._

“I have brought you a gift, my lady. Two gifts, in fact.” He laughed at that, a high-pitched, wheezing sound that grated on her nerves. When she said nothing, only looked at him in stony silence, he shook his head. “Reek, bring in Lady Elena’s gift.”

All the air had gone from the room.

Elena stared, horror-struck, at the man who dragged in the heavy oak chest. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears like surf pounding the shore.

Snow was still smiling, grinning widely, like a hyena. “I thought you would like to see your wedding gown, before you wear it tomorrow night.” He followed her eyes, his own wide with mock-surprise. “Oh! Yes, there’s your other gift. Do you like him?”

The ruin that Elena had known as Theon Greyjoy did not raise his eyes to look at her, merely stood, trembling a little, as Ramsay presented him to her, as one might present a little girl with a new pony.

At long last, Elena found her voice. Her mouth was as dry as a desert, her throat even dryer.

“W-what…what did you do to him?” she asked, barely above a whisper.

“Oh, chopped a few bits off him. Peeled a few others. Nothing more than he deserved, for killing the young Stark boys.” His tone changed to become more serious, though Elena still heard mocking. “I hope you will consider it just punishment, my lady, for the way he violated you. Oh!" He clapped his hands, as if he had just remembered something delightful. "I castrated him, as well. He won't be raping anyone anymore, don't you worry." He smiled at her with a conspiratorial air. The room span, and Elena prayed she would not faint.

“He never…he never did that,” Elena said, dully. She was still looking at Theon. She could not tear her eyes away. The degradation of him could scarcely be described – he looked barely human. Elena saw the rags he was dressed in, the filth that covered him, the scars, and her stomach turned. He still would not look at her, head down, shivering like he expected another blow at any moment.

“Oh?” Snow asked, all innocence. “Well, he did like to boast of false conquests, even before. He did threaten to rape you, though?”

“He never would have,” Elena said stupidly. “He never would have.”

“As you say, my lady,” Snow smirked again. “We’ll leave you, now. Although – if you’ll allow me, my lady – Reek, look Lady Elena in the eye, now.”

Slowly, ever so slowly, Theon raised his head. Elena did not know whether to cry, or run, or vomit. _I prayed to the gods to punish him justly,_ she thought. _I never meant for this…gods be good, I never wanted…_

“Apologize to Lady Elena, Reek,” Snow said, in a voice like a snake whispering over grass. “Apologize for threatening to rape her, and for killing her brothers-in-law.”

Elena swallowed. Theon licked dry, cracked lips. She could see tears shining in his grey eyes.

“I’m – I’m sorry, my lady,” he muttered.

 _“For,_ ” Snow encouraged. _He is enjoying this,_ Elena knew. His eyes were shining with perverse delight.

“For – for threatening to r-rape you. And k-killing…killing your brothers-in-law.” Tears were making tracks in the dirt on Theon’s face. Elena could feel her own tears trickling down her neck and into her collar.

“There now,” Snow said. “That’s done with. I’ll leave you in peace now, my lady. I will see you again at the feast. Come, Reek.”

When the door closed, Elena finally unclenched her fists. Little red crescents filled with blood on her palms, and stung. She let out a dry, heaving sob, crumpling at the waist, and Beth put her arms around her shoulders. She did throw up, but one of the other maids, an old stooped woman, had gotten the chamber pot for her. Together, she and Beth lowered Elena onto the bed, and Beth wrapped her arms around her again.

“There,” she said, as Elena wept into her hair, like she was the child, and Beth the woman grown. “There, now, my lady.”

Elena dried her eyes and consented to be bathed and dressed. She ate in the hall where she had once received the Reeds and the Manderlys and the Umbers as a queen. She talked, polite and inane, to her Frey kin and the remaining Northern lords, and even to Ramsay Snow and his cold, terrifying father. Snow had Theon serve as her cupbearer, but Elena made her face be stone, and walled up her tears behind it. Snow seemed displeased at that – no doubt, he had wanted to see her cry again. Theon would no longer look her in the eyes, and for that, she was absurdly grateful.

She did weep at night though, into her pillow. When Beth Cassel heard, she slipped into bed beside her, and sang her to sleep as Elena had once sung Bran and Rickon to sleep. It was a sad song, about a knight killed the day before his wedding by a vengeful spirit because he would not dance with her, but it had a sweet tune, and it soothed Elena’s wavering spirit.

 _“Dance, dance, follow me_  
_Round and round the greenwood tree_  
_Dance, dance, while ye may_  
_Tomorrow is your dying day_  
_Dance with me, dance with me…”_

They dressed her in white for her second wedding. Stark white, not Frey silver, as she had worn in the sept with the trembling candles a thousand years ago. Oh, how she wished she could go back, and put her hand in handsome Robb Stark’s hand again, and listen to her sisters giggle about his fine jaw and strong arms, and how fine it would be to bed him. She had a sister, but it was only Fat Walda, and she didn’t giggle anymore, just helped lace up the back of Elena’s dress in silence. She had heard the tales too, no doubt. The tales of the hunt.

They washed her, first, in honey soap, and combed out her hair until it shone, copper and chocolate, in the firelight. They dried her off, skin clean and white and soft, and dabbed her wrists and neck with honeysuckle perfume. Then it was on with her smallclothes, soft pure lambswool, and her stays, flattening her breasts and slimming her waist. They could lace them much tighter now than they had when she was wed to Robb – she had walked and starved much since then. Her wedding gown was white silk, with long puffed sleeves, lined with white fur. The sleeves and bodice shimmered with seed pearls, and there were seed pearls in her hair as well, studded in the nest of dark braids that crowned her head. Her maiden’s cloak was white fur too, with the Stark direwolf roaring fiercely on the back. Elena imagined it was a real direwolf, Grey Wind, or Summer or Shaggydog, that she could command with a word to fly at Ramsay Snow and tear out his throat. It wasn’t though, just an embroidered one, done in glittering cloth-of-silver.

When she saw Theon Greyjoy standing outside her chamber, she shook her head, and almost made to go back in.

“No,” she said, voice shaking. “Not you.”

“I have to, my lady,” he said dully. They had washed him, too, and dressed him in Greyjoy black and gold, but there was no washing away those scars. “Lord Ramsay said I’m to give you away.”

“Why? You’re no kin to me,” she blurted out recklessly. “I’m a Frey, I have brothers, lots of brothers, they’re all here. Let one of them give me away.”

“Lord Ramsay said it had to be me. You’re a Stark, you’re R-Robb’s wife. I was his father’s ward, so that makes us nearly kin. It has to be me.”

Elena glanced edgily behind her. Her maids, Lady Dustin, her sister Walda, were all still dressing behind her closed door. She stepped closer to Theon, who moved his head away, but did not step from her.

“You don’t have to do as he says,” she urged in a whisper. “You don’t.”

Theon shook his head violently. “I do, I do…”

“You _don’t._ Theon –”

“ _I’m not Theon!”_

Elena willed herself not to cry again. “You are,” she whispered, ever so slowly. She held out a hand. He jerked his head away, like a frightened animal, but Elena stepped closed again and then her hand was brushing his cheek, light as a kiss. She gently moved his head up, until they were gazing eye to eye. The rest of him looked so different, but his eyes were the same – grey as cool slate. “You are Theon Greyjoy, heir to the Iron Islands. You’re not dead, just broken, but you can be fixed. You have to remember who you _are,_ Theon. You have to help me.”

At the touch of her hand, Theon raised his eyes to her big dark ones. Once, he had thought them the only lovely part of her. He didn’t deserve to be touched so gently, she should slap him, she should hurt him, but she didn’t, just looked at him with those big, pleading eyes.

The door opened, and Elena jerked her hand away. Theon turned guilty eyes away from her.

The wedding guests were gathered in the godswood. Ryswell, Umber, Dustin, Slate and Stout, Manderly and Hornwood; they all gathered to watch their little lord’s lady mother wed for the second time. This would be a Northern ceremony, no Southron wedding like her last; she would be wed under the stars and the snow. Her thin doeskin slippers did little to keep the cold of the snow and ice out. At least her body was warm though, under the layers of fur and feathers and wool. Snowflakes fell like tears, fringing her lashes, cooling her red cheeks, forming a frosty crown in her hair.

They all whispered when they saw her, arm in arm with Theon, like ghosts in the falling snow and the cool mists. The hanging lanterns that marked the path bobbed and glowed in the fog like will-‘o-the-wisps. Elena thought she saw Lord Wyman smiling in the white, but she turned her head away. _Never let them know you still have friends, or fight left in you,_ he had whispered to her before they left for Winterfell.

Then Ramsay’s face appeared, out of the mists like a monster in a fairy-tale. They had found themselves below the heart tree, beneath the blood-red leaves.

“Who comes before the gods?” Roose Bolton asked.

“Elena, of House Stark, comes here to be wed,” Theon replied in a hoarse voice. Elena’s hand tightened involuntarily on his arm. “A woman grown and flowered, trueborn and noble. She comes to ask the blessings of the gods. Who comes to claim her?”

“Me,” Snow replied. “Ramsay, of House Bolton, Lord of Hornwood and heir to the Dreadfort. Who gives her?”

Elena glanced up at Theon beside her. “Theon, of House Greyjoy,” he managed, “Who was her father-in-law’s ward.” He turned, and she released his arm. For a moment, they stood looking at each other, like they were bride and groom themselves. _Help you? He cannot even help himself, stupid girl._ “Lady Elena, do you take this man?”

 _No!_ she screamed. _No, I do not! I hate this man, this man is evil and cruel, and his father murdered my real husband and stole my baby boy!_ The silence was deafening. Behind her, a baby’s ragged cry came.

Elena glanced behind her. Beth Cassel was rocking a little bundle of grey fur in her arms, cooing and hushing softly. Elena could not see the babe’s face, but she knew her son’s cries better than she knew her own face. She swallowed her fear, her pain and her disgust, and turned back to the heart tree. Roose Bolton smiled at her thinly.

“I take this man,” she whispered, so low she could not hear herself. She cleared her throat, and tried again. “I take this man,” she said again, louder. In the branches of the tree, a raven gave a cry at her voice, and flew away.

_Elena, of House Stark. That’s me. I am a Stark, and I can be brave._

When they set her portion of the pie before her at the feast, Elena did no more than look up and raise her goblet to Lord Wyman across the smoky hall. He smiled, and did the same. Elena looked away and busied herself with getting as drunk as was seemly.

She had never drank wine like this, in earnest, with the goal of clouding her senses. The room was soon swimming, and she lowered her goblet unsteadily to the table. She glanced at Roose Bolton one place down the dais, cutting his meat. _Eat up, my lord,_ she thought bitterly, _for you never know which meal will be your last. Stannis Baratheon is coming, aye, and maybe he’ll make this another Red Wedding for me._

They made Theon take her up to bed, but no matter. She was already drunk and stumbling, they could have gotten the Night King to do it and it would have made no difference to Elena. Or so she thought. When Snow asked Theon to stay, though, a thrill of horror and disgust cut through the fog of alcohol she had hoped would shield her.

How had she been scared on her first wedding night? She pondered that, as the cold steel of Theon’s dagger sliced the back of her gown and sent it pooling around her feet. What had she to be scared of? _Robb was so handsome, so gentle and kind, and the first time barely lasted five minutes. I was so lucky, and I didn’t even know it. I should have drank him in, ran my hands down his firm chest and through his red curls. Waste, such a damn waste._ She was no longer coherent, the alcohol and the fear addling her mind and scattering her thoughts, as her smallclothes went the same way as her gown. She shivered in the cold air, goose-bumps erupting all over her body and nipples stiffening in the icy room, but knew better than to try and cover herself. She didn’t look at Ramsay, or at Theon, but at the flames in the hearth.

Ramsay gave his high, wheezing laugh. “Enjoying yourself, Reek?” Elena was shaking now, but from the cold no longer. The shake was bone-deep, coming up from her core and rattling her teeth in her head; the same shake that Theon had now. “You’ve been waiting to see that pretty sight for a long time. Did you know, my lady, that Theon Greyjoy betrayed your husband because he desired you, and wanted to take your for himself?”

Elena looked over at Ramsay so slowly. All her joints were stiff and frozen. “No,” she said, heedless of the danger. “No, he didn’t.” _He hated me, he always hated me, always looking at me with those cool grey eyes and that cool smirk, he never_ wanted _me, he_ hated _me. No, no, it cannot be._

“Yes. He told me so himself. He told me everything, sang like a pretty bird, like they all do when you peel them. They say a naked man has few secrets, a flayed man none. And Reek has no secrets from me anymore, do you, Reek?”

 _It's not true,_ Theon tried to scream. _He made me say that, he's just trying to hurt you. Trying to hurt us._

“No, my lord,” Theon mumbled behind her. Elena would not, could not look around at him.

Theon watched her shake in the trembling firelight, so pale, so small. A real man would have wrapped his cloak around her and plunged his dagger into Ramsay's cold, dead heart, but Theon was not a real man anymore.  _Just do what he tells you, and he won't hurt you much,_ he wanted to tell her, but he dare not offer her even that meagre comfort.

“Well, here’s your chance, Reek. Wife, get on the bed and spread your legs.”

Elena did as she was told, while every fibre of her being told her to take Theon’s dagger and shove it where Ramsay Snow’s heart should have been. The furs were soft beneath her body.

“Go on. Prepare her for me.” Elena started at the beams of the ceiling. They were new-cut and pale, like all the beams of the newly rebuilt castle. Elena counted the knots and whorls in the wood as Theon said –

“B-But, my lord – I don’t have a – a –”

“Well, then, use your tongue.”

Elena dug her fingers into the furs below her, and then into her palms, hard enough to hurt. _I am a Stark, a direwolf, brave and fierce. I will eat you all like air._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay i've decided from now on to largely go with show canon, with some book canon tweaks (to make it better....sssh) since book canon gets fuzzy not far from now. please let me know if any of the stuff with ramsay goes to far or becomes gratuitous, i want to portray him accurately but i don't want to cross a line. as always, thanks for reading!


	11. what is dead may never die

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really tried to make you cry with this one, guys, so please give me lots of comments about how you wept. your pain sustains me.  
> again, trigger warnings for implied rape and implied torture  
> thanks for reading!

_I will eat you all._

_I am a direwolf – brave – I am brave._

_Fierce._

_I am a queen; I will not cry for you._

_I will eat you._

When Elena came back to herself, she was all alone. She could feel her blood drying on her thighs. Her face felt swollen and bruised, throbbing dully where she pressed it into the bed. Her nails had cut deep, bloody crescent moons into her palms.

She lay there, and pretended she was dead.

She felt the sun on her back as it rose. She was trying so hard to be strong, to be stone, to be unbreakable, but she could feel the tears trickling out, and the sobs starting up. They wracked the frame of her body, came up from some deep well of despair inside her and shook her like a little boat on a savage stormy sea.

The knock on the door nearly frightened her into fits. _Oh gods please no, he only just left, please no it hurt so much leave me be leave me BE_

“My lady?”

Elena let out another wracking sob, muffled by the furs she had stuffed into her mouth when he – when Ramsay –

“It’s alright now, my lady, it’s your Beth, I’m here to help…” Elena heard the girl step into the room. “We both are.”

_Both?_

The girl on the bed raised her head. Theon remembered another time, before Ramsay, when he’d woken her like this, with his sword point at her pregnant belly. She had glared at him through her tears, then. She was not glaring now.

Her eyes were swollen and red. The bruises on her face were starting to purple, and red was on her lip too, bloody where the back of Ramsay’s hand had split it. Her soft white skin was bruised all over, and between her thighs –

Theon swallowed. He had thought he was used to Ramsay’s games by now. But evidently not. He looked away, and dared not raise his eyes to the bed again.

Beth Cassel moved to wrap a blanket around Elena Stark. Theon had once had one of his men put an axe to her throat, but the girl barely looked at him now; she knew as well as he did there were far more frightening monsters than he lurking within the walls of Winterfell now. She soothed her weeping lady with a hand through her tangled, greasy hair, and then went back to Theon, who handed her the basin of water in silence. He didn’t know what to do. He wanted to give Elena comfort, tell her knew, oh he _knew_ how she felt, he knew the pain, but he didn’t really, not _her_ pain. Ramsay knew how to make his games special and unique for each unfortunate in his grasp. And Theon knew that he had been sent to tend on the new Lady Bolton as a part of Ramsay’s game with her, and could therefore offer no balm that would soothe her. He was meant as part of the torture, not part of the relief.

Elena shivered away from Beth’s touch at first, and then acquiesced to her carefully wiping away the blood with the wet cloth she held. The water was warm, stinging as it wormed its way into the cuts and tears in her flesh. Elena’s own tears were drying a little, her sobs turning to hiccups, and her despair to shame, at her display of weakness. Theon stood in the corner, eyes averted from her naked body, which Elena noted with a strange feeling of gratitude.

Beth combed the knots from her hair, so softly Elena barely felt it. She sat up, wrapping the blankets and furs around her more securely. The daylight spilling in through the unshuttered window glared off the snow outside and hurt her sore eyes. She shivered. Someone, probably Ramsay, had left the window open too, and the fire in the grate had long since died.

“Are you cold, my lady?” Beth asked quickly. She looked to Theon, finally, though she had been avoiding it. She hated to talk to him, hated to look at him, as if she feared treachery was contagious. In a way, it was – if Lord Ramsay ever saw them say a kind word to his Reek, they’d find their own fingers flayed. “Find us some firewood, and a shift for Lady –”

“No.”

Crippled man and young girl both started at Elena’s voice.

“You go, Beth.” _Who are you to give orders, slut?_ Elena could hear Ramsay say, as clear as if he was stood beside her. She shivered. She didn’t feel like a lady anymore, nor a queen – she felt like a piece of meat.

“Are you sure?” Beth had all the questions beaten out of her in the Dreadfort, but she managed to question that much. A part of her still wanted to keep her lady safe, even if all she could do was bathe her cuts and brush her hair, and not leave her alone with the turncloak. And if Lord Ramsay found out she had left his new lady alone with a man… _but he’s no man anymore, that one, if the rumours are true._

“Yes.” Elena understood the reluctance in Beth’s eyes. _Ramsay pulled all his claws out, Beth, don’t you worry – just as he has pulled out all of mine. Or maybe I never had any at all._

Ser Rodrik’s little girl slunk off to do as her lady commanded, and Theon was left alone with Elena Stark, whose husband had been as a brother to him a thousand lifetimes ago.

Elena had covered her nakedness with the furs from the bed, but she still felt uncomfortably bare. She wondered what to ask – a thousand questions danced on her tongue, each more pressing than the last. _How have you survived Ramsay this long? Why did he send you to me? Did you truly take Winterfell to have me, or was that just a cruel lie? Who are you? Still Theon Turncloak, who turned on his own family? Or someone else now, someone broken beyond repair? Who_ are _you?_

“What can I do for you, my lady?” Theon trembled, eyes on the floor. _He looks like a whipped dog, more than anything._

“Theon. Look at me.”

Theon raised his eyes. She gazed back into his. She wore the cowed, downtrodden look Theon could only imagine he had with him everywhere. She looked like a wounded animal, crouching there on the bed in her furs with fear in her eyes. _Fear of me, or of Ramsay? Ramsay. If she’s smart._

“When will he come back?” Elena finally decided to ask.

Theon didn’t need to ask who she meant. “Tonight. Today he’s at the hunt, and then at the war council.”

“Stannis?”

“I shouldn’t – I shouldn’t speak of that to you.” He looked so frightened. Elena felt such pity, it choked her. Tears began to trickle from her dry, itching eyes again, but whether they were for herself or Theon she could no longer tell. _For both of us, then._

“We could go,” she said at a whisper. “We could.”

“No.” Theon understood the instinct to run – he had felt it too, once. A long time ago. Ramsay had bled it out of him. “He’d catch us. He’d hurt you worse, much worse than he did last night. He’d hurt your baby.” _Robb’s boy. A real man would steal him away, and her too. A real man would save them._

A great shudder went through her at that, and the sobs started again, low, like the moans of an animal in a trap. Theon shook his head. “No, no, please don’t cry,” he said stupidly. Hardly knowing what he was doing, he moved to the bed, and wrapped an arm around her spasming shoulders.

Theon had expected her to move away, to slap him and scream at him, wanting no comfort from such degraded filth as he. But she buried her head in his shoulder as if she didn’t _know,_ as if she couldn’t _see_ that he was less than human. Her tears soaked the rags he was once again dressed in. Her sobs shook his body.

“Help me,” she sobbed, muffled. “Gods, help me, help me…” She wasn’t really asking him, just anyone, praying to nothing and no-one and everyone all at once. Theon understood. He held her until the shaking stopped.

“I’ll close the window,” he murmured into her soft hair. “And Beth will soon be back with a shift, and some wood for the fire. You’ll feel better when you’re warmer,” he lied. She sniffed, and nodded, and drew away.

“He’s going to kill me, isn’t he,” she whispered as he turned away. He glanced back over his shoulder. She was staring, blank-eyed, at the covers; picking at a loose thread. “Once he’s gotten a son on me. He’ll kill me, and feed my baby to his dogs.”

_Not if I can help it,_ Theon wanted to say. _I’ll draw my fine sword and kill him if he tries, and take you and Robb’s little boy far away from here, and always keep you safe and warm. I’ll protect you, as I should have protected him._

Instead, he just closed the window.

Beth came back after that, and built up the fire, and helped Elena into a shift. She brought food too, hot porridge and ale. Elena contemplated starving herself to death for a brief moment, but then reflected that until she had birthed a son, Ramsay would force feed her if he had to, so she ate it anyway.

Strength flooded into her limbs. She chewed and swallowed with grim determination, while Beth and Theon watched her. Ramsay would come to her again that night, but this time she really was stone, and not one tear did fall from her eyes.

The days and nights began to bleed into one another again, the pattern always much the same. She spent her nights gritting her teeth and bearing blows, cuts and worse; her days, she spent recovering from her nights. Disgust thrilled through her whenever she caught a glimpse of her own bruised and broken skin. Sometimes, on the worst days, Elena could see herself as if from above, laid on the bed, stained and ruined beyond belief, disgusting, pathetic. On those days she didn’t feel like a woman anymore, just a heap of meat, a dumb animal fit for slaughter. She pitied herself. She hated herself.

She hated Ramsay more, though. She let the hatred fuel her, welcomed it. The fire of her hatred for him was lit on her wedding night, and every night he came to he after that he added more fuel to the flames, until they licked at her, sustained her, kissed her face like a lover and lit up her heart.

_I will not break. I will stay who I am, on the inside, and one day my baby and I will be free, everyone in this castle will be free, and I will stand over Ramsay Snow’s corpse._

At first she wondered why no-one came for her – Lord Manderly or any of the other Northern lords – why none of them wondered after her, how none of them ever heard her screams and came to help. That was when she was more trusting, and naïve. After a few nights with Ramsay, she soon realized all the castle would rather close their ears to her screams than challenge Roose Bolton, now that he was backed by the Lannisters. _Lord Manderly is biding his time as well, picking them off one by one, and he cannot help me openly, not yet. None of them can._

All her news of the activity outside of her tower room – her tower _cell,_ in truth – came from what she could persuade Theon, Beth and the others Ramsay sent to wash and bandage her wounds to tell her. It was precious little – they mostly avoided all conversation with her, some not even daring to look at her, as if they had been sent to tend to a leper. Beth talked, though she would not say what she knew of Stannis’ movements or events within Winterfell, except what Elena could trick her to let slip. Theon told her more, though with reluctance, and Elena could tell he still feared she meant to try and run away.

Theon would never save her, Elena could see. There was still some spirit in him, but the flame that burned like the beacon from the Hightower in Elena was barely a spark in Theon. He was gentle with her, every time that Ramsay sent him to wash her wounds, and at least he looked her in the eye when he spoke to her now, but he flinched at every loud noise from the yard, every sudden movement, like even in the darkened chamber with no-one but Elena he feared he would be hurt. Elena knew that if she stayed in Ramsay’s power, that would soon be her. _It is good to have someone, though. Someone who understands._ At least in White Harbour she had the company of her little Teddy. Deprived of her baby, she only had Theon to provide human contact, and she clung to him coming to her like a drowning girl clinging to a driftwood spar.

“A-are you well?” Every word Theon spoke to her sent a thrill of terror through his heart, though he knew Ramsay couldn’t hear him. It was a stupid question, but he asked it of Elena every morning, only meaning to check that she was still surviving.

She nodded.

“Here, I brought food.” He set the tray down on the table by the bed, and she leaned over and tore into the bread, devouring it. At least she still had the strength to eat.

“What’s going on?”

“N-nothing. Nothing, really.”

“Is Stannis still marching? Is he close?” She talked breathlessly, between mouthfuls of food.

“I – I don’t know. Probably.” Theon hated when she asked these questions. They made him think she was planning something, and that would only end in pain, for her, for her baby boy. Ramsay couldn’t kill them, not yet, but he could hurt them.

Elena knew that when Theon said _probably,_ he really meant _yes._ If Stannis was close, that meant Elena would not need to bide her time for much longer. _Maybe when I go, I could take Theon with me. He’d slow me down, but I’ll be slow anyway, with Teddy. And if I leave him here, Ramsay will blame him. Ramsay will hurt him. And he doesn’t deserve that, not anymore._

_If he won’t save me, then I will. I’ll save all of us._

One night, after Ramsay had left her and she was shivering under her blankets, collecting the pieces of her sanity, Elena heard a rap on the door.

_Too early. Theon or Beth would come at dawn, and Ramsay at dusk tomorrow. Who else would come here?_

“Your Grace. May I enter?”

_No-one calls me Your Grace anymore._

“…Yes.” Elena’s voice sounded like it belonged to someone a hundred years old.

The door to her cell opened softly. The old bent-backed old woman had attended Elena’s shame and misery several times before, but Elena had never heard a word from her mouth, until now.

“I bring you a gift, Your Grace.”

_A gift? From Ramsay, perhaps. Some other torture. But what could be worse than everything he’s already done?_ Elena sat up, and motioned for the woman to come closer.

“Here, child.” The woman stood at the side of the bed, and held out her hand for Elena’s. She gave her hand over, cautiously. _But what harm could this little old woman do me?_ Her crabbed, spotted, wrinkled old hand took hold of Elena’s with surprising strength, and pressed something long and smooth and cool into her palm.

“You still have friends in the North, Your Grace. Should you ever have need of them, have Beth light this and place it in the window of the Burned Tower.” The woman leaned in, and Elena instinctively leaned away, but she only pressed a kiss to Elena’s hair. _A kiss._ Elena felt tears prick into her eyes. It has been so long since she had been touched so gently; so, so long.

“May the old gods watch over you, child,” the old woman murmured, “And over your son.” She left, closing the door behind her, and Elena opened her fist. The little candle rolled in her palm.

_Friends. What friends? Why didn’t they come before now? Lord Manderly, perhaps, or one of the Umbers? Or no-one, just another of Ramsay’s little games._ Elena did not know how long she stared at the candle, but eventually the dawn came, and she crept off the bed and limped with some difficulty on her shaking legs over to the wall. As the dawn light sneaked in around the shutters, she rubbed away the dirt in a joint between two of the stones, until the gap she had found there weeks ago was once again exposed. She forced the candle into the gap until she could no longer see it, and smeared the dust back over the gap. When Beth came to attend to her she was back in the bed, as if nothing had ever happened.

The candle was burning a hole in her wall. Her eyes slid to it all the time – when Beth came to clean her up, when Theon came with the food, even when Ramsay came to her at night. She kept her eyes on it all through the pain, and clenched her fist in the sheets. _Should I? Is it real? Will someone come to help me?_

But she only knew she had to use it after she had been nearly two moons in Winterfell. She had managed to sleep after Ramsay left her, despite the pain, but when she woke Elena immediately felt the nausea. She got up on trembling legs and stumbled to the chamber pot, heedless of her cuts and bruises and the stabbing pain between her thighs. As soon as she had thrown up, the sickness passed, and she sat back on her heels, cold settling in her veins. _No. Oh, please gods, no._

She couldn’t be sure, of course. But if she _was_ with child… _I must go, now. I cannot wait for Stannis. If I wait much longer, it’ll be too late._

When Beth came an hour later, Elena had the candle hidden in her palm.

She pressed it on Beth, with breathless pleas to take it to the Burned Tower. The girl shook her head, tears in her eyes, but she took the candle with her when she left. Elena could only pray. She had done all she could do. It was in the hands of the old gods now.

That night, Ramsay found her watching at the window. She got on the bed dutifully when he entered, and all night she watched the little light, nearly lost in the darkness, blinking and flickering on the other side of the castle. But in the morning, nothing had changed. No-one had come. _Perhaps it was a trap, after all, or just a cruel trick._ Despair was beginning to cloud her judgement. It was as if she could feel a noose, tightening around her neck.

And the next night Ramsay came to her, as always. Instead of beginning as he usually did, he just looked at her, head cocked like a curious dog.

“Not tonight, wife,” he said in a bright voice. Words that should have reassured her, but only made her heart sing with fear. “Tonight, the maids will draw you a bath, and you’ll dress. Here, I’ve brought you a fine new gown, see? Sit up, my love.”

She did as he bid, shivering. _This is a trap._ Of what kind, she could not say. She wished she had a knife, to hide on her person as she had when Theon took Winterfell, but all she had was her naked, broken skin.

The bath was warm and soothing on her bruised and chafed flesh. The women attending her were not Beth, or the old woman, but two of those who dared not speak to her. They dressed her in the gown Ramsay had promised – soft, dark blue felt bands over white linen, and a skirt and bodice of blue felt as well, scattered with freshwater pearls like stars. Then there was a cloak, of blue wool lined with soft dark grey lynx fur, and knee-high laced boots of supple brown leather with squirrel-fur lining – outdoor clothing. Elena had not been outside her room in two moons.

Ramsay waiting for her outside the chamber door. She cringed away from his cold grip on her arm. “Come, my lady,” he said with a cold, maniacal smile. “I have something I wish to show you.”

Snowflakes swirled in the icy, knife-sharp wind. Icicles hung from every roof, frost covering ever wall, snow capping the crenellations. The half-rebuilt yard rang with the sounds of hammer and sword, of men repairing the castles defences and endlessly drilling for combat. Elena recognized none of them, no Frey brothers or Manderly men, though she doubted anyone would lift a finger to help even if she did. The snow had melted into grey sludge in the freezing mud, shoved carelessly up against the walls to make a kind of walkway through the treacherous ground.

“Stannis will be here any day now, my scouts tell me,” Ramsay said conversationally. “Today, or tomorrow. I’ll break him and come home safe to you, never fear.” He grinned sideways at her, knowing that she prayed for his death and for Stannis to prevail every day.

Elena shivered even in her new warm clothes. Her legs were unsteady on the ice, the cuts on her back and thighs screaming as she walked. She felt like someone had shoved a knife up into her womb. Ramsay kept a tight grip on her upper arm, though, so she was borne along with him despite her pain, clutching the folds of her cloak around her. In her heart, she knew that whatever he wanted to show her, it would crush her. She didn’t want to go, didn’t want to see, but she didn’t have a choice.

Blood, dripping onto snow. That was the first thing she was aware of. They had reached the newly repaired gates of pale, virgin wood, and mounted above them was the old woman who had given Elena the candle, had kissed her so softly on the head and given her the blessing of the old gods. She looked like she was wearing a red dress with a high collar up to her chin, a red dress that dripped grotesquely onto the white snow piled beneath her. Elena’s stomach roiled like a stormy sea, and she turned and vomited into the snow.

Her tears stung, and her throat burned as the acid in her stomach came back up. She nearly fell into the snowdrifts, but Ramsay held her up, his grip a vice on her arm.

“See how much I love you, wife?” he whispered in her ear. “Much, much more than Robb Stark ever did. She tried to take you away from me, but I wouldn’t let her. Did Robb Stark ever kill to keep you by his side?”

When she looked into his pale, mad eyes, Elena saw her own end. There was no escape from those eyes; no escape from him. _I am seeing what Theon saw,_ she thought hysterically, _what Beth saw, what they all see. Death. I thought_ I _was the Stranger, but it was_ him _, all along._

The world around Elena was going black.

“Are you going to faint?” Ramsay asked, like the possibility delighted him. “Does the proof of my devotion make you swoon with excitement?” He cackled at that. “Best get you back to bed, sweetling. You clearly need rest.”

Elena shook her head. _No, please. I want to die under the open sky._

Ramsay’s face twisted. The mild, mocking expression he had worn changed abruptly to a mask of fury. “You _will,”_ he hissed, taking her by the shoulders and dragging him close to his face. “And you’ll never leave again. This is your last lesson. The next time you defy me, I’ll take your baby’s skin instead.”

Theon was walking towards the covered bridge between the armoury and the Great Keep when he heard the baby’s thin wail and froze.

_I should keep walking. Ramsay would be angry._ The baby wouldn’t stop crying though, screaming like a stuck pig. The miserable sounded echoed through the Great Keep, louder than the freezing howl of the wind outside. _If he disturbs Ramsay, or Lord Roose, they’ll be angrier, though._ Unbidden, Theon’s feet were moving back down the corridor, towards the source of the cries.

The room had been the nursery of the Starks since time immemorial, just below the apartments of the lord and lady. Theon had never slept here, but Robb had, and sweet Sansa and wild little Arya, and the boys Bran and Rickon, even the bastard, Jon Snow. Theon pushed on the door softly. If the wet nurse was in the room, she would have quieted the child by now, but he was still afraid to be discovered. The cries were much sharper and louder as he entered, almost hurting his ears.

Theon looked into the cradle near the window. The child was laid on a wolf’s cub pelt which lined the cradle and wrapped loosely in grey lambswool blankets, face red as he screamed. His little wisps of auburn hair reminded Theon of a young man with snowflakes melting in his own auburn curls, but when he opened his eyes, they were the dark, bitter chocolate of a girl in a white dress under the heart tree. Theon’s heart ached.

A cold breeze sneaked its fingers under the shutters of the window, and Theon shivered. _Too cold._ He leaned over the cradle and brought his hands to the blankets, hardly daring to breathe as he wrapped them more securely over the boy’s little shoulders, brushing his soft skin. The child’s breath hitched, his cries quieting to hiccups and then to nothing. He blinked up at Theon, dark eyes bright and curious, and then smiled.

Theon smiled back. His finger brushed the soft auburn hair, the little rosy cheek. The little boy smiled wider, and gave a high-pitched giggle. Theon felt tears on his cheek, warm and soft as a mother’s kiss.

_It would be kinder to smother him, now. Kinder than what Ramsay will do to him, when Elena gives him a son._ But Theon did not move, merely let the little boy wrap his tiny fingers around one of Theon’s remaining ones with surprising strength. _He has Robb’s strength._

Beyond the nursery, a war horn sounded. _Stannis. He snuck up on them in the snow. If he wins, he will execute me, gods willing._

_Ramsay will ride out to meet him, he won’t stay here safe behind the walls. He’s getting reckless, and he wants blood. Perhaps…a chance, perhaps. A slim hope, but still hope._

The baby began to wail again at the sound.

Theon picked him up, and cradled him close. “Come on then, little one.”

The snow was falling thicker now, as night approached, spilling ink across the sky. Elena watched it fall from the bed. Ramsay had been excited when he took her that night, by the flaying, and she hurt all over, but she barely felt it. It was nothing. _The dead cannot feel pain, and I am dead after all, or as near as makes no difference._

The end was coming now. Elena could feel it over her shoulder, watching her. A few turns of the moon, and she would give Ramsay a son, and her pain would be over. _But my boy. My little Eddard, my strong prince._ If Ramsay had his own boy, he would have no need of hers. He would feed him to the dogs. _And I will have given him his own heir, another Bolton to plague the world. Ramsay will take him and twist him, make him cruel and mad, mould him in his own image. I have poison inside me. I have to get it out._ After some time, she realized she was speaking aloud, muttering “Get it out, get it out,” over and over and over again. _Have I gone mad? Has Ramsay finally snapped my mind, like a child might snap a twig?_

The snow was still falling. Elena could feel it calling to her, the delirious cold, the warm white embrace of oblivion. The eyes of the heart tree were on her, the feeling of being watched stronger, like it had been her first night in Winterfell a lifetime ago. Moving slow, as in a dream, she slipped off the bed and lifted the latch of the door.

Theon heard another war horn sound. The horses were screaming in the yard, and the men were shouting. He tightened his arms around little Eddard, trying to the quiet the child’s resumed cries. The only way they would get out was if he was quiet.

Elena’s tower room was in the Maester’s Turret, on the other side of the castle. Theon ordinarily would have despaired of getting there undetected, but every fighting man in the castle was gathering at the gates, and perhaps if he stayed to the shadows, in the dark snowy night, no-one would look at the broken man carrying a bundle of blankets. _Ramsay would look._ But Ramsay would be at the North Gate, not anywhere near the Maester’s Turret. _I can get to her. I can, I can._

But something drew him away as he headed over the yard. Men ran past him, dark shapes looming out of the falling white, and Theon cringed every time, but none of them paid him any heed. The snow covered the burns on the walls, the ruined buildings, erasing the scars of the violence that had befallen Winterfell, slowly but surely, and turning it to a pure, clean place; a castle of snow. Beyond the white yard, beyond the falling snow, the door to the godswood was lost in the shadows. And leading to it, rapidly filling with fresh snow, was a fading trail of bare footprints.

Theon pushed the heavy iron door open with difficulty, frozen as it was, and with the baby cradled in his other arm. Even in the godswood, with its hot springs, the snow was laying, thick and crisp and even. The footprints were clearer here, unmuddied any other tracks, leading towards the centre of the godswood. Outside, the castle was a riot of noise and movement, but in the godswood, as the door shut behind Theon, all was silence. Theon hesitated for a moment, unwilling to break the pure virgin snow, to disturb the cold, divine peace. The wind whispered through the trees.

_Theon._

He swallowed, and stepped forward.

The girl lay in the snow below the heart tree. The snow was falling on her little body, soaking through her white shift.

Theon thought her dead, at first. In that thick freezing snow, in just her shift, she should have been dead. But when she heard Theon’s footsteps, she lifted her head, snow crusted in her hair, giving her a white crown. In the night, her hair and eyes were dark as midnight, her lips and cheeks as red as blood, her skin as white as the snow all around them.

“What are you doing?” Theon gasped, the words pulled from him. She stared at him with her liquid black eyes.

“Dying,” she replied, as if the answer were obvious.

“You can’t,” Theon said dumbly. “We can go now, we can, you can’t die now. Come, we’re going. We’re going to go far away from here.”

“I can’t. It’s over.” She wasn’t shivering. Theon thought that was a sign the cold had gotten in her already, that he was too late, but her lips and cheeks were still rosy. Theon had seen men frozen to death, and they had blue lips, not red. _How is it she is not shivering?_

“It’s over,” she repeated. “Once his boy comes out of me, it will all be over. But if I lay here long enough, we’ll both freeze, me and his boy inside of me. He’ll never get what he wants from me, never.”

“You don’t have to die,” Theon said desperately. “It might not be a boy. And if it is, I’ll get you far away from here, where Ramsay will never have him, or you, or this little one.” Her eyes alighted on the bundle Theon clutched. Her red lips parted into a glorious smile.

“My Teddy,” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears. “You brought my boy back to me.”

Theon knelt before her, the snow soaking him, and gave her the bundle to hold. Inside the furs, Prince Eddard was sleeping soundly. Theon made to take off his cloak and wrap it around Elena’s bare white shoulders, but when he touched her, he found she was as warm as if she had just come out from beside a roaring fire. _The hot pools,_ he thought, but a chill went through him all the same.

“I thought I’d never see you again,” she was whispering to the baby, rocking him. “But it’s alright now, little wolf pup, it’s all alright, mama’s here… I will keep you safe, little wolf. I _will._ ” Her tears dripped onto his face.

“Will you come now?” Theon asked.

She looked up at him from her baby boy, eyes sparkling like black diamonds. “Yes. Oh, yes.”

Her slim white hand came up, and Theon pulled her to her feet.

Most of the men in the castle were marching out to counter Stannis Baratheon, but many had been left to man the walls. Their torches flickered and bobbed above them, guttering in the still falling snow. As soon as they left the godswood, Elena started to tremble, and Theon wrapped her in his cloak, threadbare as it was. He was happy to die of frostbite, so long as Elena and little Eddard stayed warm. He kept his arm around her as they hurried across the yard, as if to keep her from sight, although he knew it would do little good if anyone spotted them – but no-one did. Yes, Ramsay had left men on the walls, but Stannis was knocking at the North Gate, and it was at the North Gate they had all gathered, made foolish by panic. The South Gate was barred securely, but the wall above it was bare, so there were no eyes to see as they slipped out the frost-sparkling postern gate.

“Where will we go?” Elena whispered as they hurried through the snows.

“To Jon Snow, on the Wall. He’s Robb’s brother. He’ll help us. He will.” _Say it enough times, turncloak, you might make it true._ But it was their only chance.

“What about Stannis?”

“If Stannis prevails, I’ll take you back to Winterfell. But he might not, so best we get far away from here until the battle is over, and we need to get you someplace warm, with strong walls.” She nodded, and shifted the weight of the babe in her arms. “Here, let me carry him,” Theon said, holding out his arms. She handed the child over with a shy, grateful smile. Their breath frosted and mingled in the air.

“It’s so cold,” she whispered, still trembling. “And the Wall is so far away. How will we ever get there?” Theon could hear despair in her voice again. Her feet in the snow were so white they were almost blue. _She can’t travel like this._

“Here,” he said, deciding. He pulled his boots off, one at a time. She shook her head, dark hair cascading over her shoulders.

“No, how will you walk –”

“I’ll be fine. You need them more than I do.”

The snow covered their tracks behind them. They moved away from the walls of Winterfell first, and then looped round, back north. Theon hoped they had walked far enough away from Winterfell, but there was no way to know for sure. They couldn’t see any lights, at least. The sun rose, and fell again, and still the snows fell. Theon’s heartbeat was just starting to slow down to normal, when they heard the baying of the hounds.

“No,” Elena moaned, sobbing with despair. “Please, no.”

"We have to run now.”

“I can’t, I _can’t_ –”

“You _can,_ or they’ll rip us apart, they’ll rip the _baby_ apart. You can run for him, can’t you?” She nodded, and Theon saw the glint of determination returned to her eye.

The snow was so thick, it nearly tripped them half a dozen times, but Theon hoped that if it slowed them down, it would slow their pursuers down too. _Is it Ramsay? Has he defeated Stannis already?_ It didn’t really matter who it was, not really. If they were caught, they would die, all the same.

When they came to the stream Theon thought Elena would balk for sure, and _he_ nearly did, but she seized his sleeve. “Come on. I _need_ you, Theon, come on!”

He had stopped feeling his feet long before now, and most of the rest of his body too, and though he was still shivering, Theon knew he would stop soon. He had been weak even before they spent a day and a night walking through the snow. The stream was thick and deep and swollen, the water white, with chunks of ice floating on its surface. Theon looked at it, and saw his own death. _Finally._

Elena knew that look in his eye. No doubt, she’d had the same look when he found her in the godswood, sleeping under the heart tree. “No!” she cried, grabbing his arm and dragging him to the water. “No, you may _not_ die, I still need you, Teddy still needs you. The water will wash away our scent, you know it, you know it’s the only way.”

Theon nodded, and stumbled after her into the freezing water.

The cold took all the breath from her lungs. Her borrowed boots filled with water immediately, her already soaked shift and thin, threadbare cloak billowing in the current. Arms trembling, she lifted Teddy as high as she could, too terrified to even let the furs he was wrapped in touch the water. It was so cold, it _hurt,_ worse than anything that had come before. It seemed to take her and Theon an age to wade across, clinging to one another, and once they reached the snowy bank the cold seemed to bite all the harder, if such a thing were possible. And still, the hounds were coming. Elena could still hear them just behind, and she dragged herself to a deadfall to hide, as useless as that was.

Theon held her as they crouched behind the jagged, dead black branches. The snarls were coming closer, the horns, the thunder of the horses and the shouts of the men. Elena was shaking in his arms, and the boy was starting to cry again, and it was over, all over, but at least they’d tried, at least they’d shown some defiance before they died –

The first hound was on them, and then, it wasn’t. All Theon could see was a blur, an enormous grey blur that shot out of nowhere, and then the dog was gone, it was on the ground dying, its blood smoking in the snow. The direwolf snarled. Another hound came up behind and leapt onto the wolf's back - he shook it off, and ripped it in half like it was nothing. Theon and Elena goggled at the sight, too shocked even to scream.

In the distance, swords were clashing, men were shouting. Their pursuers were fighting _someone,_ someone unknown, several someones, but Theon could only see the wolf. _It was supposed to be dead. It was supposed to have died with Robb._

The massive creature sniffed at them, low to the ground, stalking. _Does it mean to kill us, too?_ Its smoking amber eyes were fixed on Elena, and the wailing bundle cradled in the crook of her arm. _No, no, don’t hurt them,_ Theon thought desperately, but could only watch, frozen with fear.

But Elena was not afraid. She knew it was alright now. _We are saved,_ she thought, exalting. _We are saved._ She stretched out her hand, and touched Grey Wind’s muzzle. The wolf sniffed her hand, and licked it with an enormous rough tongue, and Elena began to giggle, hysterical.

She leaned in, and buried her face in his soft, thick fur, tears running down her face. “Thank you,” she whispered into his shoulder, “Thank you, my king.”


	12. before those hands pulled me from the earth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the long update! i feel like we're nearly in the endgame now but honestly we're really nowhere near jsdhfjkdsjfk  
> thank you for reading, and enjoy!

The sounds of the fight in the distance were quieting now. The snow still fell, frosting Grey Wind’s fur, and Elena clung to him tightly, to his warm fur, smelling of pine and dirt and snow and _wolf._ The animal moved back, and sniffed Teddy’s head, brushing him with his nose, as gentle as a mother might have, as Elena herself would have touched her son. Elena realised she was crying again.

“I thought it was dead,” Theon whispered hoarsely behind her. “I thought it died with Robb.”

The wolf turned its amber eyes on Theon at the sound of his voice. A chill went through him, even colder than the settling cold of death he could feel in his chest, even colder than the snow all around or the river water already freezing on his ragged clothes.

The sound of hoofbeats approaching made them both flinch, but Grey Wind only turned to look at the riders with his amber eyes. As they came closer, Theon squinted through the snow – there were two of them, on rangy grey geldings, wearing grey cloaks. They looked like ghosts, like spirits sent to drag Theon down to hell.

Theon did not know them, but Elena did. _“Olyvar?”_ she gasped.

“Sister!” The young squire with brown hair and round eyes in a slightly pinched face dismounted and sheathed a sword covered with blood, shaking snowflakes from his hair. Theon recognised him when Elena cried his name, finally connecting. _Robb’s old squire. Gods, it’s so hard to think…why can’t I think?_ The knight beside him dismounted as well and sheathed his own sword. _Another Frey…one of the bastards, maybe…_ Theon could feel the cold receding. It was not a good sign. It felt like he was starting to slip down into a warm bath.

“Perwyn - How – what –?” Elena was looking at her Frey brothers with suspicion and fear in her brown eyes.

“No time for explanations,” the knight she had called Perwyn said quickly. “Come, let us take you somewhere safer than here, and then we’ll speak.”

For a moment, Elena hesitated and glanced at Theon. He knew they were thinking the same thing. _They are Freys. The Freys killed Robb. What if they take us back to Ramsay, or to Walder Frey?_ But Olyvar Frey had been Robb’s squire. _And if they meant to hurt us, Grey Wind would know._ At present, the great animal was crouched beside Elena, eyes alternating between her, and her brothers, but he was silent in his watchfulness. _If they meant us harm, he would go for them. I am sure of it,_ Theon thought. He nodded at Elena, and she took Ser Perwyn’s outstretched hand.

Perwyn lifted her onto his horse, and mounted up behind her, holding her by the waist. Olyvar glanced at Elena, and then helped Theon up onto his gelding behind him.

The trees and the snow whipped past them in a blur of black and white. Theon could feel his grip on reality fading away, but he tried to cling on, stubborn. _I can’t die, not yet. Not until I know they’re safe._ He kept his eyes on Elena, and the little bundle of fur clutched in her arm, even as his vision blurred and dipped in and out of darkness. He was so warm, though. It would be so easy to close his eyes and slip away. So easy…

 _Is this how I die? I suppose that is not so bad. I got her out of there, when no-one else would do anything. I saved the little boy, her baby. Maybe I did enough, maybe I can sleep now. I wish I could see the stars though. Just one last time._ He could taste every wasted minute of his life in the cold air. _All the things I could have been, the love I could have had…was there any other way my life could have led?_

The trees, the snow, the jingle of the bridle and the thudding of hooves, all slipped away from Theon like water through his hands, and he let the darkness take him.

_Black. All was black._

_Theon felt a thrill of terror. Is this all there is? Is this what hell is? All dark, all nothing, all void, for ever and ever? He could hear nothing, see nothing, feel nothing. He had no heartbeat, no nerves, no strength._

_Time meant nothing to him, and it seemed like he lingered in the empty black for an eternity, his terror and panic growing more and more._

_Until finally there came a pinprick of light, somewhere far away. At first, Theon thought he was only imagining it, only wishing there to be light, that there was nothing there at all; but the light grew bigger and bigger, glowing and glowing, burning, until Theon could see it was a torch, dancing and flickering in the dark._

_When he beheld the man who carried it, he wanted to weep, though he had no eyes for the tears to fall from._

_“Robb.”_

_The torchlight shone on his auburn hair, but his face was pale and gaunt, his blue eyes so dark they were nearly black. “Go back,” he said._

_“I can’t,” Theon sobbed. “I can’t.”_

_“You must. They need you.”_

_Theon did not have to ask who he meant. “They’re alright now, they’re safe.”_

_“They will never be safe. My wife, my son. You threatened them, you let them down. You killed the farmer’s boys. You betrayed me, who was your brother. Your true brother.”_

_“I’m sorry, gods, I’m sorry –”_

_“Go back, and help my family. Help_ your _family. Go_ back _.”_

_The light from the torch grew brighter, white and harsh as daylight, burning away the darkness. Theon was blinded, by the light, by his own tears. He blinked and screamed, but he could feel arms around him, hands stroking his face, cloth wiping away his tears._

“Theon,” someone was whispering. “Come back, _please._ Come back.”

Theon opened his eyes.

At first, all he could see was red. Red cloth, he came to realise, rippling above him. He blinked away the shade of death from his eyes and willed himself to see clearer. _A pavilion. Where am I?_ A small, white hand came into view, brushing his hair back, and then wiping a cloth damp with warm water over his brow, washing away his fevered sweat. He could hear the rustle of cloth as the owner of the hand moved away. Slowly, aching with pain, he turned his head.

Elena Stark was sat by him, her head turned slightly away as she dipped the cloth into a basin of water and wrung it out with a careful hand. She was dressed in clothes that were too big for her – a black felt tunic, sleeves turned up, and grey woollen breeches, an oversized cloak wrapped twice around her shoulders. She looked like she hadn’t slept for a month – eyes red-rimmed and swollen, face pale and hollow, hair greasy and tangled, lips dry and cracked. In the too-big cloak, she looked sunken, child-like, vulnerable.

By her side, the great direwolf lay, his smoking amber eyes fixed on Theon. He remembered the burning light of the torch in the darkness, flickering on red hair.

“Elena,” Theon whispered with great effort.

She turned her head quickly, lips parted with joy, eyes full of tears. She leaned over him, taking his hand where it lay on the furs. “Oh thank the gods, thank the _gods…”_

Theon felt his own throat ache with tears. “Where are we?” he gasped, feeling a hundred years old.

“Stannis Baratheon’s camp.”

“How?” His head was filled with wool. “I thought – I thought Stannis marched on Winterfell already.”

“So did Ramsay. Stannis sent a splinter force to try and draw him out.”

A thrill of hope went through him. “Is Ramsay dead? Has Winterfell fallen?”

Elena shook her head, her lips a thin white line. “They bloodied each other some, and Stannis’ men withdrew. It’s a stalemate.”

Theon swallowed. His mouth and throat were dryer than a desert. Elena pressed a hand to his chest.

“Are you thirsty? Here –” She stood, picked up a leather water skin from a round table in the middle of the tent, and brought it over to him. Sitting up was still beyond him, so Elena carefully trickled water into his mouth. It tasted sweeter than any wine.

“How did we come here?” he asked finally, when his thirst was sated.

“My brothers. It’s…a long story.”

Theon smiled. He had not smiled since before he took Winterfell. “I’m not going anywhere,” he promised. Elena smiled back, and squeezed his hand.

So Elena told him what Olyvar and Perwyn Frey had told her as they rode away from Winterfell. How Walder Frey had plotted his betrayal of Robb Stark with his eldest sons, and how as birds flew from King’s Landing to the Twins and back again, his younger sons began to grow suspicious. Finally, Lord Walder had sent Olyvar and Perwyn away from the Twins, with a hundred men, ostensibly to deal with outlaws. Olyvar and Perwyn were brothers to Roslin, and were deemed too sympathetic to Robb to stay, for fear they would try to warn the Northmen of the plot. (“I would have, too,” Olyvar had told Elena tearfully as she sat by the fire and listened to them. “I would have saved him, if I’d been there. I would have, I promise.”)

Perwyn had grown too suspicious when they were a day away from the Twins, and turned the little party around, but when they arrived there it was too late. The Northern camp was already burning, and the sky above the Twins was the colour of blood.

(“We tried,” Olyvar had sobbed. “We cut them down, father’s men, Black Walder’s men, Bolton’s men. But they brought him out – with-with-without his – his head –”)

Robb was already dead when they reached the yard, but Grey Wind was not, raging and thrashing, locked in a kennel. Perwyn and Olyvar cut down the men about to fire their crossbows into him, and broke the padlock on the kennel with their swords. After that, Grey Wind killed more men than they did, and they cut a bloody path out of the Twins.

They wandered, aimless, for weeks. Untethered from their House and their family, with not even a hundred men at their command, all they had was a burning desire for vengeance and justice that they had no way of sating. They considered going to White Harbour or the Last Hearth, but worried the Northern lords would curse them for oathbreakers and kingslayers. Only Grey Wind seemed to have any purpose – the wolf followed the White Knife with religious determination, following a scent or a trail the men could not see. They followed him because they could see no other way to go.

When the wolf abruptly left the camp one morning and began heading north again, none of them knew what to make of it. Half of them were sick of following a dumb animal around, but most of them understood the wolf was _more_ than a wolf, that it knew more than they did. Some of their men slipped away in the night, leaving them weaker than ever, but they carried on doggedly regardless, heading north. Three days later, the wolf led them into a village where they learned the truth. That Elena was alive, and to be wed to Ramsay Snow.

Broken, beyond hope, they decided they would help their sister or die trying. (Elena had tears in her own eyes now, even as she told the story to Theon, who held her hand tighter.)

They sneaked coded messages into Lord Manderly, Hother Umber, Lady Dustin. Only Manderly replied – that he was biding his time until Stannis fell upon Winterfell and Ramsay was dead, at which point he would be happy to make another match for Elena and foster Prince Eddard at White Harbour. (Elena’s face was sour and drawn, and Theon understood. _It was her claim they wanted to help, not her. Manderly is not cruel, but it was the Stark name he was loyal to, not the frightened child with the infant to protect. Her body was the price he paid to one day see a Stark king rule the North again.)_

Frustrated, the Frey brothers decided to go in themselves. They sent the candle, to give Elena courage. They saw the flame flickering in the tower. But Ramsay knew; he doubled the guards on every gate and postern door, and sent men into the ruins of the winter village to root them out. It was only when Stannis sent Mors Umber and his men to draw Ramsay out of the castle, that half-enchanted night Theon found Elena in the snow under the heart tree, that they dared approach the castle again. Grey Wind led them, through the trees and the dark and the snowstorm, straight to Elena.

“We thought you dead,” Elena whispered, tears trickling down her wasted cheeks. “You wouldn’t wake up, and you were so _cold._ We were trying to start a fire for you, when Stannis’ men found us.”

“So what now?”

“Lord Stannis is at his war council. We’ve been here a day and a night and I still haven’t seen him.”

“Why?” Surely Stannis would have demanded Elena be brought to him directly.

“I – I wouldn’t leave you.”

Theon’s throat ached. “You didn’t have to do that.”

She squeezed his hand tight, her own eyes shining with tears. “Yes I did.”

Elena sighed, and yawned. She was so damn tired. She had nursed Theon for two nights without sleep, and seen to Teddy’s feeding herself as well. She had let her brothers talk to Stannis in her stead, though she knew soon she would have to pay court to him herself. It would be a battle, and she was so tired of fighting. She just wanted to _sleep_.

“You’re tired,” Theon murmured, eyes-half closed. “You should sleep now. I’m alright. Go.”

Elena shook her head. “I don’t want to be alone.”

Theon moved aside a little, groaning in pain. Elena picked up Teddy from his leather cot, wrapped in warm woollen blankets and furs, his little sleeping face peeking out. She brought him to the bed, and laid down with him in her arms, beside Theon. As the snow still fell, relentless, outside the tent, they slept.

Stannis Baratheon asked for them the very next day.

Alysane Mormont had let Elena borrow some of her clothes, though they were mostly too long in the arm and tight around the chest for the smaller, curvier girl. They found a purple wool dress that just about fit, and a heavy cloak of brown fur clasped with worked bronze. There was a band of bronze placed around her temples, too.

Grey Wind padded at her side as they walked through the snow-bound camp together – Elena, Alysane Mormont, Ser Perwyn and Olyvar, and Theon. He was still weak, but strong enough to walk. Elena held his hand as they crossed the camp. Every man’s voice, shouting orders across the camp, made her jump, and the sight of soldiers repelled her. _I cannot cringe in fear when I stand before Stannis. I cannot jump at the sound of his voice._

It was so _hard,_ though. Every man reminded her so much of Ramsay. Only Theon understood – he took her hand and held it, and knowing he was there, the simple fact that she was not alone, gave her more strength than a thousand steel swords. That, and the great direwolf that followed her like a shadow. The night of her wedding to Ramsay she had prayed for a real direwolf to come and rip his throat out, and now she had Robb’s wolf by her side she knew she need never fear the likes of him again.

Stannis’ pavilion was a massive construction of red and orange silk, like flames. His banner fluttered everywhere – the crowned stag of Baratheon, within the burning heart of R’hollor, alien and frightening to Elena’s eyes. Two Baratheon guards drew aside to grant her and her little train egress.

Elena knew Stannis Baratheon only by reputation – that he was a hard man, and stern; a great battle commander, just and honourable, but not warm. _Warmth is not what I need._ Wyman Manderly had been warm, but he had not saved her from Ramsay. Stannis Baratheon followed the law above all else, and Elena could already predict what he would do with her and her son – send them to the Wall for safekeeping, retake Winterfell, establish Teddy as Lord and wed Elena to one of his trusted knights, to act as Lord Protector. _If he prevails, which he may not._ The earth was shifting below Elena’s feet once again, but her fear was not truly for herself, but for Theon. _He is a murderer, as far as Stannis knows. He will want Theon’s head._

The so-called rightful King of the Seven Kingdoms did not wear silk and velvet, but wool and steel. The only adornment on his body was the crown with the flame-shaped points on his brow. He sat straight backed in the chair at the centre of the pavilion, face closed and brows drawn, and regarded Elena with steel-blue eyes. His knights gathered behind him, and at his right hand was a tall, beautiful woman with waist-length hair that flickered like flames, and a blood-red jewel at her slim white throat. She stood with a hand on the back of the king’s chair, watching Elena as he did.

_I am a Stark. I can be brave._

“Lady Elena, of House Stark. Ser Perwyn Frey, Olyvar Frey. Theon Greyjoy,” said the woman in red. _Melisandre of Asshai. The Red Woman._ Elena had heard her name whispered all over the camp. “Kneel in the presence of Stannis Baratheon, the First of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men.”

Perwyn, Olyvar and Theon all went to their knees, as did Alysane Mormont, but Elena remained standing. Her palms were sweating in her fur lined gloves as she stood tall before the man on the throne, surrounded by kneeling men. Theon glanced up at her, afraid.

“You don’t kneel,” Stannis observed gruffly.

“Queens do not need to kneel to kings,” Elena replied. The Red Woman was gazing at her with deep, unfathomable eyes.

“Are you a queen?” Stannis asked darkly.

“My husband was Robb Stark, who was King in the North. My son is his heir. Yes, I am a queen.”

“Indeed.” He held up a scroll. “There are many in the North who would appear to agree with you.” He read from the paper. “’Bear Island knows no King but the King in the North, whose name is Stark.’” Alysane Mormont lowered her head. “It would seem you have leal supporters in ten year old girls, my lady.”

“The North remembers,” Elena said, trying to keep from shaking. “Bear Island has always been loyal to House Stark.” She didn’t look at Alysane Mormont, or Mors Umber who was gazing at the ground as well. _It is not their fault. They thought Stannis was the only road they had left to take._

“Rise, all of you.” Stannis said to Elena’s brothers and Theon. He looked back up at Elena. “I don’t wish to supplant House Stark. Your son is Robb Stark’s lawful heir, and Lord of Winterfell by right. When I retake Winterfell, I mean to establish him there, with good men to council and protect him.”

“And me? What do you mean to do with me?” Elena tried to keep her head held high.

“You are his lady mother. Swear fealty to me, and I will find you a good husband, and you will rule the North in my name together, until your boy comes of age.”

“I have no need for another husband,” Elena said firmly, though the mere mention of marriage was enough to set her screaming. “Two were more than enough. I would sooner rule alone.”

Stannis did not smile, though Elena thought she detected amusement in his eyes. “You would ask me to leave the raising of the Lord of Winterfell to a woman?” Elena said nothing, not trusting herself to answer. Stannis sighed. “There’s no need to argue over it now. We will have plenty of time to discuss the matter when Winterfell is mine. There is one matter, though, that I _will_ discuss now.” He looked behind Elena, to where Theon stood, eyes on the floor. “It is past time that one was brought to justice – _true_ justice.”

Elena stood tall, though she could feel herself trembling. “No.”

His was a face that gave little away, but Elena thought that Stannis Baratheon looked surprised. Frowning, he leaned forward. “This man has done you much harm. You don’t wish to see him brought to justice?”

“The man is a turncloak, my lady,” Alysane Mormont said with undisguised disgust. “Despised by the gods. Do not waste your breath defending such as he.” Grey Wind pricked up his ears and growled a little, a low rumble in his chest, and Elena tangled her fingers in his thick grey fur to calm him.

“Theon saved me from Ramsay Snow,” Elena argued, her voice high and tremulous to her own ears. “He helped me escape from Winterfell, when no loyal lord of the North would lift a finger to help me.” There were some murmurs at that, the Northern lords glancing at each other, and Mors Umber swore.

Tired as she was, their denial sparked anger in Elena. “Do not deny it, my lords,” she said curtly. “I know you had your reasons for leaving me to the tender mercies of Ramsay Snow – but when you would not endanger yourselves for me, Theon Greyjoy did. He saved my life, and the life of my son, the heir to the North. And he has been punished enough.” She could feel Theon’s eyes on her.

“I am the king,” Stannis half-growled, “And it is my duty to bring criminals to justice. Theon Greyjoy rose up against his liege lord, invaded his lands, and murdered Brandon and Rickon Stark. For murder, for treason, the punishment is always death.” Mormont, Umber and Arnolf Karstark muttered in agreement.

Elena felt sick and faint. She wanted to cry, and beg, _please no, you can’t kill him, please._ Instead, she held her ground. _It is time._ She had kept her secret for so long; had kept her boys safe in her heart. But this had gone on long enough.

“Theon didn’t kill Bran and Rickon,” she said, calmly, though her heart was hammering. “They escaped Winterfell with me.”

Alysane Mormont had tears in her eyes, and Perwyn and Olyvar were looking at her with wide eyes. Stannis frowned at her. “There were bodies.”

“Farmer’s boys. Theon had them killed, and the miller’s wife as well, and burned the bodies and covered them in tar to take our places.” Even as she said it, she knew it would not be enough to stay Stannis’ hand. He was still frowning, and shook his head.

“Farmer’s boys, or lordlings, he still committed murder. And you cannot deny he committed treason against his liege lord. The punishment must stand.”

“It was my husband he betrayed,” she replied firmly. “My lands he invaded, my castle he took, my smallfolk he killed.” She hoped she didn’t sound as desperate as she felt. “Mine is the grievance, and my grievance has been satisfied. As Lady of Winterfell, I say you will _not_ execute Theon Greyjoy.”

Behind her, Theon gaped, open mouthed. She was so small before the Lord of Dragonstone, diminished by her time as Ramsay’s bride, thin and pale and bruised. Yet she stood taller than any man in the pavilion.

Stannis’ lip curled a little, in cold amusement at her daring. Elena felt sure the whole room could hear her beating heart. Finally, he sat back with a sigh.

“As you will. Keep him alive, if you wish it, but I will not suffer a traitor to go unpunished. He’ll go to the Wall with you, and there take the black.”

Elena’s head spun. _At least he will not separate us, at least for a time._ She felt faint and dizzy with the effort of standing up to him, but the battle was won now. _But not yet the war._

“I have his sister too. The Lady Asha. We took her prisoner at Deepwood Motte.”

Behind her, Theon started. Elena clenched her fists inside her gloves.

“What would you have me do with _her_ , Lady Stark?” Stannis asked, testing her.

Elena thought, chewing her lip, aware of all the eyes on her. “The Lady Asha did me no harm,” she said after a moment. “She took Northern lands on the orders of her father, nothing more. Acts of warfare, not of treason.” She glanced behind her a little, into Theon’s huge grey eyes, and then back. “When you retake Winterfell, I ask that you give her into my custody, to make a peace between the North and the Iron Islands. Do not execute her…if you please.” She cringed at finishing so weakly, but Stannis nodded.

“As you wish. Keeping the king’s peace in the North is your duty, as liege lady. If you believe you alone can keep it, very well.” It was not meant as a boon, Elena knew. _He thinks me a green girl. He believes I will fail._ Mors Umber and Arnolf Karstark looked like they agreed with him. The thought filled her with anger, but she bit her tongue. _I can’t fight them all. I can’t even fight one of them. I just want to rest, gods, why won’t they all let me rest?_

“I give you all leave to go,” Stannis dismissed curtly. Elena frowned.

“What of your war plans, my lord? I wish to know how you intend to take back my hall.”

Stannis laughed bitterly. “My war plans are no concern of yours, child. You have had more than enough from me today. Go, rest. Tomorrow you will ride for Castle Black with these Frey brothers of yours, and the turncloak. Lady Alysane will accompany you with fifty men as an honour guard.”

Elena gritted her teeth. A part of her wanted to argue, but another, larger part of her just wanted to run and hide, and lick her wounds.

“The king has dismissed you, child,” Melisandre of Asshai said smoothly. Elena glared at her, but she turned to go all the same, Olyvar and Perwyn and Theon all following, and Grey Wind as ever by her side. As she glanced behind her one last time, she saw the Red Woman lean in to whisper in her king’s ear, her deep red eyes still burning into Elena’s. With a shiver, the girl hurried from the pavilion.

Theon stopped her with a hand on her arm outside the tent. Olyvar and Perwyn both gave her questioning looks, but she dismissed them with a small smile and a nod. The smile dropped as soon as they were gone, and to Theon she suddenly looked a hundred years old.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Theon said, voice low.

“Of course I did.”

“I – I hurt you. I put you in so much danger. If it wasn’t for me, Ramsay would never –”

“If it wasn’t for you, Ramsay would have killed me,” Elena said softly. White smoke from the cookfires mingled with softly falling snow as they stood together. “If it wasn’t for you, I would have killed myself.” She smiled then, a sweeter smile Theon had never seen, and brushed his face with her gloved hand softly. “But it’s all over now. We’ll be safe on the Wall. We can rest now.”

“But it’s not over,” Theon replied. “Not for you. Stannis wants you to marry again.” Elena’s eyes filled with desperate tears, and she hugged herself unhappily around her furs.

“I know,” she said, voice filled with exhaustion and pain. “I don’t know what to do. What else _can_ I do?”

Theon shook his head, and tentatively put his hands on her shoulders.

“We don’t have to go to the Wall,” he blurted. “We could go anywhere. Pentos, Braavos. Anywhere. We could find an empty cottage in the Gift and live there, raise the boy in peace.”

Her smile was so sad, and sweet, it broke Theon’s heart. “We could plant a garden,” she said wistfully, her eyes far way. “Flowers, herbs. Wait for summer inside, by the fire. When spring comes, all the flowers will be in bloom.” She laughed, and Theon chuckled too. The idea was ridiculous, fanciful. But there were tears in both their eyes all the same.

Elena shook her head as her laughter died. “Stannis will retake Winterfell,” she said softly. “We will live there, Teddy and I. I will raise him to be a good lord. To be just, and kind, and strong. I have to do my duty.”

“I know you do,” Theon said, voice cracking.

“And you,” she smiled tearfully, squeezing his arm. “You will be a man of the Night’s Watch. You’ll protect the Wall, and get your honour back – maybe even become First Ranger, one day.” Theon chuckled, and Elena grinned wider. “You’ll visit, with the Night’s Watch, and we’ll feast you in the Great Hall, and I’ll tell Teddy all about what you did for us. And we’ll be happy.”

_Let it come true. Let it be true. Please, that’s all we ask for._

Theon didn’t know how the arrangement came about, exactly, but it seemed so natural for him and Elena to share a tent that no-one seemed to question it. Her brothers did not seem to want to broach the subject of separating them, and neither she nor Theon had any desire to be apart. For his part, Theon was so grateful not be alone, that he never said a word when she fell asleep on the cot next to his, her baby boy in her arms.

Elena never said a word, either, when Theon woke screaming. She only sat up, soothed the awakened baby with a hushed word and a moment of rocking, and then came over to Theon. She sat on the bed next to him, and wordlessly took him in her arms, smoothing a hand over his sweat-soaked brow, and his ragged hair. Slowly, slowly, his breathing calmed, and they lay like that together, cradled in each other’s arms, until the morning came.

They mounted up at dawn. Alysane Mormont held Elena’s horse steady as she mounted up, and then swung into the saddle behind her. Elena tightened her arms around her baby, asleep in her arms after his morning feed. She turned to see Theon mounted as well, the sight of him a reassurance. _Nearly home now,_ she thought. _Nearly at journey’s end._ She had to believe that, _had_ to, because the alternative – that she was walking into another battle, another trial, another torture – was too much to bear. Her hand, unbidden, moved down to her stomach. There was little to see, to one who did not know her body as she did, but she felt the bump. She had told no-one, only Theon, and prayed for a miscarriage, but none had been forthcoming.

“Ready, my lady?” Alysane Mormont asked her. Elena huddled down in her furs, and nodded.

The little honour guard left the camp of Stannis Baratheon with no ceremony. Elena could see Stannis and his red woman gathered at a watchfire near the perimeter, watching her go in silence as the flames flashed and sparked before them. Elena turned away, and looked to the north, to the Wall. _To rest, and safety, and family. Robb’s brother Jon Snow commands on the Wall. It will be sweet to introduce him to Teddy._

Theon rode just behind her, with Olyvar and Perwyn. _How will Jon Snow receive him, I wonder? All a man’s crimes are forgiven on the wall, true, but the North remembers. Jon Snow may remember too._ The thought was a disquieting one.

“My lady!” A breathless girl rode up, on a stocky black pony. From the saddle, Elena recognised her, and let out a cry.

“Arya!”

Young Arya Flint had not changed since Elena had saw her many moons ago, bringing her and Teddy down the White Knife to White Harbour. Her merry, round red face was surrounded by a hood of dark brown fur, and a bow and quiver full of grey-fletched arrows protruded over her shoulder. She beamed at Elena.

“I’m that glad to see you again, my lady. We had feared the worst.”

Elena felt lighter than she had in six moons. “I’m glad to see you again, too.”

“And the little prince is well?”

Elena looked down at her sleeping son’s face. “He is strong,” she said softly.

“Aye.” Arya Flint’s smile was as bright and sharp as her name. “We said as much.”

They rode all through the day, over rough hillocky ground and deep snowdrifts. The flakes had slowed to a complete halt by midday, but the air was still bitterly cold. Still, as the bright winter sun shone on her face and she felt her cheeks and nose glow red in the frigid air, Elena had the feeling of waking from a long nightmare.

The nightmare returned, though. It always did.

When they made camp at dusk, Elena felt herself craving sleep, and dreading it, at the same time. She was tired, but the night brought loneliness, darkness, crippling fear. She stayed by the fire with Arya Flint and Alysane Mormont as long as she could, eyes prickling with woodsmoke and exhaustion.

“Arya, I need to ask you something.”

Arya wiped her mouth, and set her trencher of venison aside. “Aye, my lady?” Lady Alysane glanced up from where she was running a whetstone along the blade of her axe.

“I need your advice.” Elena took a deep breath, and brushed a hand against her stomach again. “I think…I _know,_ that I am with child.”

Alysane Mormont sucked in her breath. Arya’s eyes were full of anger. “The child of that monster?”

Elena hadn’t realised she had begun to cry until she felt the tears run beneath her collar. “Yes,” she struggled to say, her face twisting with pain. It felt like she was expelling some kind of poison from her veins. “I don’t know what to do.”

Alysane rushed around the fire to put an arm around her weeping lady. “There, my lady. Have no fear.”

“It will not be easy to find tansy,” Arya said grimly. “Not with winter here, and the snows killing all the flowers.”

Elena could have screamed. “Are you sure?” she asked, desperate, tears streaming down her face. _Please, I cannot have his child._

Alysane seemed at a loss for words. “There are other ways, my lady, but…you have been through much. The other ways are dangerous. It could kill you.”

 _I know._ She had laid in the snow and the ice in only her shift, and waited for the cold to kill her and the babe inside her both. But when Theon had found her, she had been warm as a new-lit fire. _Under the eyes of the weirwood. Under the eyes of the gods. They would not let me die._

“Then I must bear it,” she whispered. Arya Flint grimaced.

“Snow may come for his son.”

“Let him come,” Alysane Mormont replied. “I’ll give him a steel kiss.” She raised her axe, glinting in the firelight.

“I do not think it will be a boy,” Elena said absently. Arya cocked her head.

“How’s that?”

“I don’t know,” Elena murmured, staring into the flames. Unbidden, her hands was rubbing circles on her belly. “I just feel it.”

Theon was still awake when she slunk into his tent. In the moonlight her face was white as bone, and hollow as a skull.

He felt her weight as she settled on the bed, and the lightest touch of her hand on his shoulder, and sat up.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“I wasn’t asleep. I – I can’t.”

“Me neither. Whenever I try…I see his face.”

“…Me too.” Theon dreamed Ramsay found them again every time he slept, and woke screaming. He tried not to sleep, instead, and nearly fell from the saddle with exhaustion. The worst part, though, was seeing that same exhaustion etched on Elena’s face, like Theon’s mirror-image.

Elena’s big dark eyes were a hundred years old. “I can still feel his hands on me. _All_ the time. _Always_. And the child…when it starts to move, it will be like he’s inside me all over again.” Tears were trickling, glittering down her cheeks.

“There must be a way to stop it,” Theon said softly. He could feel dampness on his own cheeks.

“Dangerous ways. There will be pain…no matter what I do, no matter where I turn. If I keep the child, pain, if I try to get rid of it, pain…if Ramsay defeats Stannis, pain. If Stannis defeats Ramsay…he will make me marry, and I will have to fight again, tooth and nail, to stop any wedding, to make Stannis trust me, to make Robb’s lords obey me…it was _his,_ all his, _he_ was the king, I never wanted to be queen…” She was starting to sob. “It’s too _hard,_ no-one ever told me what to do, and if I make just one misstep…I just want it to be _over._ ” Her hand fisted in the blankets of the bed. Theon put a hand over it. “I want to die again,” she whispered, hopelessly. “I don’t know how to keep living. I’m all alone.”

“You’re not,” Theon whispered through the dark. “You’re not alone. You have the boy, and this new child. It’s not Ramsay’s, it’s _yours,_ yours alone, it will have all of your goodness and none of him. And you have me.” He didn’t know why he said it. They wouldn’t let Theon stay with her, he had to take the black and stay on the Wall, but in his heart he felt like he couldn’t leave her. _Go back and help them._ “I won’t leave you. I’ll fight them all and stay by your side. We’ve come this far…we can’t stop now.”

She let out a heaving sob, and leaned forward into his embrace. Theon stroked her hair clumsily with his mutilated hand.

They both jumped when a heavier weight suddenly alighted on the camp bed. The direwolf stood at the end of the bed, panting slightly, his amber eyes burning through the darkness. He padded to Elena, and licked the tears from her cheeks with a rough wet tongue. Surprised, she began to giggle.

"Don't forget him," Theon smiled as well. 

"He was Robb's," she said as she cupped an arm round the beast's shaggy shoulders, digging her fingers through his thick fur. "I don't know why he came back for me. I don't even understand how he found me, or why."

"They were more than just beasts," Theon said softly. Remembering. Before Ramsay, before everything. "I think...maybe Grey Wind has more of Robb in him than we realise."

Elena looked at the wolf, who had settled now, lying with his head on his massive paws, eyes half closed. She stroked his head absently. "I feel safer with him...and with you."

Theon nodded in the darkness. "I feel safer with you too."

They fell asleep like, in each others arms, with the direwolf curled around them.

Four days riding had brought them further north than Elena had ever been, and as they rode through the Gift she found herself feeling more at peace than she had since she had left the Twins, what felt like a thousand lifetimes ago. Despite the danger she was still in, the trials that lay before her, she knew it might be months before she had to ride for Winterfell again. For now, her journey was nearly over.

They saw the Wall before they saw anything else.

It swallowed the horizon – a glittering monolith, shifting with a thousand different shades of white and blue and grey and black. The sunlight shattered off the ice wherever it hit it, making it look like a wall of pure diamond. It was the largest structure Elena had ever seen. The closer they got, the more it loomed over them. It made her feel so small, so insignificant, like the girl lost in her crowds of kin at the Twins, ignored by her father and bullied by her siblings; like the empty shell Ramsay had created in the tower chamber in Winterfell. _What are men and gods, lords and kings, compared to that?_

Castle Black itself, though, was decidedly less impressive. A collection of towers, barracks and grain stores, many of them falling down, with no protection from the south save for a hastily erected wooden fence. The hue and cry went up as soon as the banners Alysane Mormont and Perwyn Frey carried were spotted – the burning heart of Stannis Baratheon, and the direwolf of Stark. The wooden gate creaked open, dragged over the snow, splintering and groaning as it went.

“It doesn’t inspire confidence, does it?” Elena leaned down from the saddle to whisper to Arya on her smaller pony. “I thought the Night’s Watch were the shield that guards the realms of men. I should think the realms of men would want a shield that didn’t have _cracks_ in it.” Arya laughed brightly.

They found the yard quiet and subdued, with men in black gazing with suspicious eyes from the walkways and windows all around. Theon held a hand out to help Elena dismount. She smiled at him, tight-lipped, but he could see how nervous she was. He squeezed her hand before he let it go.

“Lady Stark. Welcome to Castle Black.” A thin, weary-faced black brother stood before the entrance to the largest keep.

“Jon Snow?” Elena knew it could not be him even as she asked. _Robb’s brother would be much younger._

“Edd Tollet, my lady.”

“Where is the Lord Commander?” Alysane Mormont demanded, coming up to stand behind Elena. Edd Tollet shook his head mournfully.

“Jon Snow is no longer Lord Commander, my lady.”


	13. strap the wings to me; death-trap clad happily

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we! here we! here we fucking go!

“What do you mean?”

Elena could feel the world slipping through her fingers once again. The snowflakes were dancing around her, scattered as her hopes.

“My lady…you had better come inside,” Edd Tollet said nervously, running a hand through thin greying hair.

“Not until you tell me what’s going on here.” Alysane Mormont laid a hand on her shoulder.

Edd rang his hands. “It’s a long story, my lady. Please, come inside.”

“We should bring the babe inside,” Theon said softly from her right hand. “It’s getting colder out here.”

Elena thought for a moment, and then nodded.

It was not much warmer in the hall than in the yard. Stood there by the massive hearth was a tall woman with a pinched face and prominent ears, a little girl with large blue eyes and a face mottled by greyscale; a slender girl of an age with Elena, and a tall warrior clad in bronze scales. The girl dropped a small curtsey to Elena, but the woman – whom Elena suddenly realised must be Selyse Baratheon, by the flame-shaped crown on her brow and the flaming heart embroidered on her bodice – only looked down her nose at her.

“It is customary to curtsey to a queen.”

Elena gritted her teeth. _This again._ She bent her knees stiffly and shallowly to Selyse Baratheon, who looked no more pleased at that than she had before. She swept a hand at the little girl by her side without looking at her.

“My daughter, the King’s heir, Princess Shireen.”

The little girl smiled, and Elena found herself smiling back.

The slender Northern girl stepped forward. “Lady Stark. My name is Alys Karstark.”

“My lady,” Elena nodded to her. “What happened here? Where is my husband’s brother, where is Jon Snow?”

“You may see him soon, my lady.” The girl with the long brown braid and the blue-grey eyes had a grim expression on his face. “For now, you should sit.”

Alys Karstark introduced the warrior as her husband, Sigorn of Thenn.

“A wildling?”

“Aye, my lady. Jon Snow arranged it all.” The wildling warrior spoke the Common Tongue better than Elena ever would have expected.

“He tried to make an alliance with the wildlings,” Alys Karstark explained. “And his brothers killed him for it.”

Elena gaped at her, and then at the tight-lipped Queen Selyse. “Then we are not safe here,” she said quickly. “If Jon Snow is dead, why should the Night’s Watch protect me?” Alysane had her hand on the shaft of her axe again. “Does Lord Stannis know?”

“ _King_ Stannis,” Selyse reprimanded her primly. Elena ignored her.

“He does,” Edd Tollet said. He had brought over tankards of ale and a plate of bread and cheese, which he set before them, and sat down at the same table.

Elena shook her head in confusion. Around her, her brothers, Theon, Arya and Alysane wore similar expressions. “Then why…why send me here?”

“Jon Snow is not dead,” Sigorn of Thenn answered gruffly. “He rose again.”

_Gods…gods have mercy._ “He…what?”

“Don’t ask me, my lady,” Edd said glumly. “I don’t know how she did it.”

“She?”

“The Red Woman. Before she went riding back to Stannis. One minute he was gone, and then…he awoke.”

“The Lady Melisandre asked our god to give his light and strength back to Jon Snow,” Selyse said eagerly, “And he did. It was a miracle.” Little Princess Shireen pushed a piece of cheese idly around her plate, eyes lowered and brows creased.

“Snow brought the traitors to justice,” Alys Karstark said grimly. “And now, here we sit. Waiting.”

“Waiting for what?”

“He hasn’t left his room since he executed Bowen Marsh and the others,” Edd picked up. “King Stannis told us to await you, my lady. He said you’d speak with him.”

Elena glanced to Theon. _I don’t know Jon Snow, and he doesn’t know me. But he knows Theon. He may hate him, but they were raised together. Wherever he is lost, Theon may be able to bring him back._ In his eyes, she saw understanding, of what she would ask him to do, and reluctance.

“We should rest first,” Elena said quickly. “Rest, and wash, and eat. My companions and I have had a long ride, and my son is very young, to have journeyed so far.” She stood, and so did Edd and Lady Alys, and all of Elena’s companions, but not Sigorn of Thenn, or Selyse Baratheon, who held her daughter’s sleeve tight. Alysane Mormont glared at them, but Elena shook her head.

Their rooms were simple, and dark. Elena felt a thrill of panic when she saw she and Theon were to be separated, but she knew that if they openly shared a room here, people would start to talk. _Of what, though? We could never be lovers._ The thought almost made her laugh. _But outside eyes would never understand._

Elena asked Arya Flint to stay, and help her out of her clothes. An ancient wooden cot had been found from somewhere, Mole’s Town most like, and Teddy had been laid in it, to happily gurgle away in the corner. _He is getting so big, he can sit up in my arms already. Soon he will be walking, and talking._ The thought thrilled and terrified Elena in equal measure. Arya helped her into another borrowed dress, grey wool and white fur, with the plain band of bronze around her temples again, and her hair brushed out and flowing loose over her shoulders. In the cracked and spotted hand glass, Elena felt she looked half a wildling princess herself.

“Stannis knew Jon Snow had been….overthrown. And he sent me here anyway,” she said softly to Arya. “Why? Why would he do that?”

“Men use women to get what they want all the time. Why should this southron king be any different?” Arya replied, voice as bitter as grief.

“He used me to keep the Wall under his control,” Elena thought aloud. “He wants me to persuade Jon Snow to remain Lord Commander. I suppose he thinks because I have Robb’s son, Snow will want to protect me.” _No-one will ever help me because they care about_ me. _It’s all my claim to them, my claim and my son. If I was still Elena Frey, or not even that, just some common girl, no-one would lift a finger for me. It all comes from Robb._

But when she said as much to Theon as they ate the broth and bread given to them from the kitchens of Castle Black in her room together, he shook his head.

“I would.”

She had to laugh. “Why? If I hadn’t been married to Robb, I’d be nothing to you.”

Theon set his spoon on the table and looked down. “You’d do the same for me.” He glanced up into her eyes. “I hurt you, but you saved me. You told me I was Theon. You told me to remember who I was. You didn’t have to, you could have cursed me or hurt me, it would have been no less than I deserved. But you didn’t.”

Elena glanced down, suddenly, absurdly, shy. “You – you had already been punished enough.” When she had seen Theon for the first time in Winterfell, cowering, filthy, mutilated, the fire of vengeance had all burnt out to ash. The arrogant, foolish, treacherous man she had known was dead, and the shadow Ramsay had left in his place was not worth anger, only pity.

But now, as she looked at him, Elena realised she no longer pitied him, either. There was life in his eyes again – pain, but life as well.

“We’ll help each other, then,” she said softly, reaching out to grip his hand over the table. He returned her grip, with a smile. “Starting with Jon Snow.”

Theon’s smile fell. “He won’t listen to me,” he said. “He hates me.”

“You don’t know that,” Elena said, though she knew her words were empty. “And even if he does, I’ll say the same to him that I said to Stannis. You saved me, and I won’t let anyone forget it.”

They stood outside the Lord Commander’s chamber together. Teddy was sat up in Elena’s arms, cooing softly, and she stroked his soft red curls absently. Theon looked so pale, especially all in black, the only colour they had in the Night’s Watch. It was another reminder to Elena that she would lose him soon, and to see him dressed so put a knife through her heart, though she knew their separation was inevitable.

Elena raised her hand, and knocked twice.

_What will he look like, I wonder?_ Elena often dreamed of Robb’s corpse, headless and gory, or Lady Catelyn’s with her nail-scratched face. She had a sudden image of a long-faced young man still bleeding from a hundred stab wounds, and her stomach turned.

“Go away, Edd.” A soft voice came muffled from behind the closed door. Elena glanced at Theon.

“Jon,” he called softly. His voice trembled, and Elena linked her fingers through his. “It’s me. Theon.”

Silence. Then footsteps. Elena held her breath.

The door was flung open, to reveal a young man, perhaps a year younger than Elena herself. Tall, pale, with brown hair and grey eyes in a long, solemn face. Jon Snow looked gaunt, yes, with deep dark pits under his eyes, but there were no stab wounds that Elena could see.

There was a moment of silence, as Theon and Jon took each other in.

“I should kill you where you stand, Greyjoy,” Jon Snow said softly. He said it without anger; like it was merely what he _thought_ he should say, rather than what he meant.

“I know,” Theon said sadly, head bowed. Elena squeezed his shoulder briefly, and stepped forward.

“You won’t kill him. He is under my protection.”

“And who are you, my lady?” Jon asked, turning to look at the girl with the baby in her arms.

“Elena Stark.”

Jon blinked at her in confusion. “Elena…Robb’s bride. The Frey girl.”

_Is that all I am?_

“Yes.”

“And the child…”

Elena lifted Teddy more firmly into her arms. “His name is Eddard.”

Jon stared at the baby for a long moment. Elena could see the dawning recognition in his eyes. _He can see Robb in him._

He swallowed thickly, and glanced at Theon. “You brought them here?”

“He saved my life,” Elena said quickly, before Theon could reply. “And that of my son.”

Teddy giggled a little at nothing, grabbing onto a lock of Elena’s hair as he sat up in her arms. Elena saw the ghost of a smile haunt the edges of Jon Snow’s lips.

“If you don’t wish me to kill a traitor…what would you have of me, Lady Stark?”

“Your protection, Lord Snow.”

They gathered in the hall below – Elena, Theon, Perwyn and Olyvar Frey, Edd Tollet and Alys Karstark, her husband Sigorn of Thenn, another wildling warrior Jon Snow introduced as Tormund Giantsbane, Alysane Mormont, and Arya Flint.

Tormund Giantsbane slapped Jon Snow on the back when he saw him, grinning through his bear. “Flown down from your nest at last, little crow?” he laughed, and Elena was shocked to see a real smile on Jon Snow’s face.

“Aye. I have rested too long. But it seems I have been sent a new task to deal with.” He glanced at Elena out of the corner of his eye as Edd set a plate of food down before him. Jon Snow tore into bread and devoured it like a starving man, clearly having been refusing food for days. Elena watched him warily with her little Eddard in her lap, as a she-wolf might watch a bear.

“Stannis Baratheon sent you here?” Jon said finally, having swallowed the last of the bread.

“Yes. He means for us to wait here, until Winterfell is safely retaken.” _He means for me to control you, Lord Snow, and keep the Wall loyal for him,_ Elena thought sourly to herself.

“The king is gracious,” Queen Selyse said icily. “I imagine you must be grateful for his protection, my lady.”

“Very,” Elena said shortly.

“Is my father well?” the Princess Shireen piped up. “Will he send for us soon?”

“He seemed well when I saw him, Princess,” Elena said politely. “I am sure that when he retakes Winterfell, he will send for you at once.”

“And you, my lady,” the princess said sweetly. “You’ll be able to go back home soon. You must be very happy.”

Elena could feel Jon Snow’s eyes on her as she answered. _I wonder if he wants to go back to Winterfell too._ “Yes, princess,” she said coolly. “I am very happy.”

The feeling of being frozen in time, now familiar to Elena as an old friend, began to settle in over the next few weeks. She woke when the pink light of dawn crept over her face, rose shivering, bathed and dressed with the help of Alysane Mormont and Arya Flint, and spent the rest of the day in the relative warmth of her tower room, watching Teddy crawl over the lambswool rug and stand up, clinging to the bedpost and giggling. Sometimes she took him into the yard, well-wrapped in fur and wool, and watched the men of the Night’s Watch training with her brothers Perwyn and Olyvar, the Mormont men Lady Alysane commanded, and the Flint men that accompanied Arya.

Elena felt a queer mixture of emotions whenever she beheld her brothers; pride, at the new strength in their arms and the increase in their swordplay skills; gratitude, that they had come for her when the rest of her family had been happy to use and abuse her for their own gain; but also a strange coolness. She felt like there was a thousand miles between them, though they were drilling only a few meters away.

“Lady Elena.”

Elena turned, as Teddy babbled a nonsense greeting to his uncle, Jon Snow, holding out chubby arms. A slight smile drifted across his face for a second. “Lord Commander,” Elena acknowledged warily.

“Are you well?” Elena nodded. “And the boy?”

Elena smiled. “He’s thriving.” Her son’s little fist tangled in her hair again.

“Good. Good.” They stood together awkwardly under the steel-grey sky, with the sounds of the training yard ringing in their ears. Elena could see Jon gathering his thoughts. “My lady…I hope you know, you will always have a safe harbour here. As long as I hold the command. I mean to protect you.”

“As long as you hold command? And how long will that be?” Elena had not meant her words to sound like a jibe, but she could hear the offense in them hanging in the air. Jon Snow practically flinched away from her.

“As long as you need me too,” he answered heavily. “As long as you and your son need me too.”

“I thought your duty was to the realm. Not to your brother’s son.”

“Are you not part of the realm?”

His grey eyes were unreadable when Elena turned to look in to them. She didn’t know what to say; she didn’t know if she trusted him. She didn’t know if she trusted the ground beneath her own feet. Finally, she sighed. “…Thank you, my lord. I am…grateful for your protection.”

And she _was_ grateful; but as she watched her brothers drilling with the men of the North and the men of the Watch, as she watched Jon Snow walk away, she couldn’t help the heaviness of her heart. Teddy put his chubby arms around her neck, and she smiled, and kissed his head tenderly. “At least you love me, little one,” she murmured. Her other hand, the hand not holding Teddy to her side, drifted down to her stomach. _I will raise this one to love me as well,_ she thought, _and to have no part of Ramsay in her._

She hoped she could raise her daughter to be as clever and sweet as the Princess Shireen. Her mother may have openly scorned Elena, perhaps seeing her and her son as a threat to Stannis’ supremacy, but Shireen Baratheon visited with Elena every day. She read to Teddy, brought him her wooden toys to play with, conversed with him to try and coax him past senseless babbles to actual speech, held his hand as he toddled around the room. Elena watched them together and could not help but feel happier, and more hopeful. _The children are the thing. They are the reason we keep living; the hope that they will do better than we did._

“He is growing well, my lady.”

The snow was falling thick outside the window. Although it was only mid-afternoon, the light seemed like dusk, and all the candles were lit. Elena was sat watching Princess Shireen play with Teddy on the rug, a book in her own hand. She smiled over the top of it at the children.

“Thanks to you. I swear, you had him walking five steps unaided just then.”

“Soon he’ll be able to walk across the room without my help,” Shireen smiled back. The thought made Elena equal parts sad and proud. _The sooner he learns to walk, the sooner he must learn to fight._

Teddy mumbled to himself, playing with a little wooden stag that belonged to Princess Shireen. In amongst the nonsense, Elena thought she heard her son say “Mama.”

She and Shireen stared at each other. “Did you hear that?” Elena asked, unable to prevent the delight from creeping into her voice. Shireen nodded, beaming.

Elena left her chair and crouched in front of her son. “Teddy! Say that again! Say ‘Mama’!”

Teddy giggled and dropped the toy, reaching for his mother to pick him up. “Mama!”

Elena laughed for joy and scooped him up into her arms, spinning with joy. “Well done my love!” Shireen laughed and clapped her hands.

The door opened behind them. Theon appeared in the doorway as Elena swung to face him, still holding Teddy.

“What’s going on?” he asked, taking in their flushed faces and glowing smiles.

“Teddy spoke! He said ‘Mama’!” Elena crowed. “Say it again baby! Show Theon!”

“Mama!” Teddy giggled, clearly excited to be the centre of attention. Theon laughed, a sound that startled Elena to her core. She had not seen or heard him laughing since before he took Winterfell, since the first days of her marriage to Robb. She smiled at him, drinking it in; the peace, the warmth, the snowflakes melting in Theon’s hair, the dancing candlelight, Teddy’s little hand brushing her face. She absorbed and preserved it; she locked it away in some quiet private space in her heart, for she knew the day would come again when peace and happiness were a distant memory once again.

That day came quicker than she ever would have imagined, though.

It started with a summons from the king. It should have been a sign of good things to come; that Stannis Baratheon felt confident enough of his victory that he would send for his wife and his heir. Still, Elena knew that if she would not miss the mother, she would at least miss the daughter; and the idea of that sweet child in a warzone, however well protected she would be, set Elena’s teeth on edge. As she watched the little figure on her pony, well-wrapped in a fur-lined cloak and hood, and surrounded by Baratheon guards, Elena felt the iron hand of melancholy grip her heart.

Theon put his hand on her arm gently. “It’s a good sign,” he murmured, as if he read her mind. “If Stannis wants his family at Winterfell already, he must think Ramsay weak enough to be assured victory.”

“I know,” she said softly. “I’ll miss the child, is all.”

“We’ll see her again, when we come to Winterfell.”

“Why do you think Stannis sent for his queen and child and not me?” she asked, turning to look in his eyes.

Theon shrugged, though Elena thought he seemed uneasy. “I…I don’t know. He must have a reason.”

_Scant comfort,_ Elena thought miserably.

After that, she took to walking the Wall. She had been afraid to go up to the top before, but now it was as if the heights called to her. She wanted to see freedom, she supposed; she wanted to look at the wide world beyond what she had known, to see that there _was_ more to the world. The black brother who accompanied her always kept back, and it was almost like she was alone up there; alone on top of the world.

The world she saw was unfamiliar, the landscape alien, the hills and trees and mountains and rivers without names for her. Curious, she decided one night in the hall to ask the wildling warriors Sigorn and Tormund, that Jon Snow kept about him. They glanced at each other, surprised, when she asked the name of the white river she had seen winding down from the mountains, and named it the Milkwater as one. After that, one or both of them could be seen accompanying her on her walks, pointing out the features of the land. Elena was surprised to find them respectful, loving of the land, and the way they talked about their homes made her heart ache in sympathy.

She was walking the Wall when the ground fell out from under her once again.

Elena watched the pale lights play on the horizon as the wind ripped her hair around and the freezing cold seemed to rise from the Wall below her like a miasma.

“My lady.”

One of Jon Snow’s black brothers stood behind her, seeming apprehensive.

“A letter just came. For you, my lady, and for Jon Snow. He asks that you come down.”

_A letter for me? Who would write to me, poor and obscure and lowly as I am?_ She turned to the man, confusion etched upon her wind-chapped face.

“He asks that you come down, my lady. Please.”

She nodded, once, and walked past him to the winch cage without a backwards glance. Jon Snow was waiting for her alone in the hall, holding a scroll in one pale hand.

_“Your false king is dead, bastard. He and all his host were smashed in seven days of battle. I have his magic sword._

_Your false king's friends are dead. Their heads upon the walls of Winterfell, and the heads of his queen and their brat. Come see them, bastard._

_I want my bride back. I want my heir inside of her. I want her little prince, the squalling babe. And I want my Reek. Send them to me, bastard, and I will not trouble you or your black crows. Keep them from me, and I will cut out your bastard's heart and eat it._

_Ramsay Bolton,_

_Trueborn Lord of Winterfell.”_

When Elena finished reading aloud, there was silence in the hall. Jon Snow watched her from across the table. She laid the paper down with shaking fingers.

“Is it true?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“But we have had no word from Stannis?”

“No. No word.”

She was falling again, like the snowflakes. Down, down, down.

“Why would he ask for his queen and daughter if he thought he would lose?”

“He didn’t think he would lose.”

“What shall we do?”

Jon Snow leaned back in his chair, grey eyes heavy as snow-filled clouds. “I don’t know.”

The white was calling her, the white sky pregnant with snow-fall and the white earth down below, all the trees and the rivers and hills, all white. Elena stood on the Wall and felt the wind tugging at her skirts and her cloak and her hair, little hands plucking at her, beckoning her over the edge. _It would be easy to fall. Peaceful. When I hit the ground…from this height, I wouldn’t know anything about it._

“Elena. Don’t.”

She turned her head. Her toes nearly hung over the edge. Theon’s head was bent against the wind, but he looked up into her eyes beneath his hair.

“I wasn’t going to,” she said resignedly, knowing in her heart it was the truth. “But…if not, what else can I do?”

“Come with me. We can leave here, we can – we could go to Braavos, Pentos, anywhere. We don’t have to stay here and let Ramsay take us again.”

_More running._ Elena felt a bone-deep weariness take her over. “I can’t run again. I can’t.”

“What choice do we have?” Theon’s grey eyes were pleading with her.

Elena looked at him, and the weight of it all seemed to come crashing down upon her. Everything that Ramsay had done to him, to turn him into this broken, cowering man. Everything that Ramsay had done to _her,_ that she could still feel in the cold night, that turned her will to water every time she thought of it. _And not just us._ They had escaped Winterfell, but Ramsay still ruled over Beth and Old Nan and all the people of Winterfell, and he was still hurting them, Elena felt in her bones. _How many nameless women has he raped, women who weren’t married to Robb Stark once upon a time? How many people of the North,_ my _people, has he tortured and flayed?_

_What choice do we have?_

“I will not run again.”

Theon shook his head. “What are you saying? You can’t give up, you can’t let him –”

“I’m not giving up. And I’m not running. I’ve been running since you took Winterfell, and I’m sick of it. I’m sick of letting others take me from place to place, letting others make plans for me, _use_ me and my son as pawns in their game. I want to stand still, I want to be _home.”_

“You can make a home, in Essos.”

“How? We have no money, no way to live. There is nowhere for us to go in Essos.”

“There is nowhere for us to go _here.”_ Elena could hear the desperation in his voice. She stepped forward and took his hand.

“Yes there is. There’s Winterfell.”

“Winterfell is lost.”

“I mean to take it back.” Once the words were out of her mouth, Elena understood their inevitability. _I have lived in the Twins, and in the mountains, and in White Harbour, but I have had no home but Winterfell. The only place my son will be safe is in Winterfell._ Her hand dropped to the growing bump between her hips. _This babe will never be safe until its father is short a head._

Theon’s face was a picture of horror. “No, no, _please._ You can’t, it’s suicide. Please don’t try and fight him, Elena, come away with me –”

“I _can’t._ My place is Winterfell. My son’s place. I can’t let Ramsay keep it, I can’t let him rule my people.”

“Stannis couldn’t stop him. Why would you ever think you could?” Elena was startled to see tears on Theon’s cheeks.

“Maybe I can’t. Maybe I’ll end the same as Stannis. But I’d rather die trying to end that monster’s life, than run from him again. I can’t raise Teddy like that, always on the run, never safe, never stable. You said we don’t have a choice, and you’re right. I _don’t_ have a choice. I _have_ to fight him.” She pressed her palm to Theon’s wet cheek, and he closed his eyes, brows creased. “You don’t have to follow me,” she murmured. “I’m not asking you to die for me. I would never ask that. If you want to go, if you want to run, I won’t blame you at all.”

Theon opened his eyes. “I won’t run without you.”

“I won’t run at all.”

Theon sighed. His eyes were a thousand years old. “Then we’ll fight.”


End file.
